


our little life (rounded with a sleep)

by devviepuu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, An Alternate Theory of the Curse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Cursed Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Cursed!Killian, Detective Noir, F/M, Film Noir, season 1 divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 56,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23299567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective. She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”Only lately, she's been thinking that maybe it should say "Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck."Her partner's been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him. But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.(a FULL rewrite of "the stuff that dreams are made of" completed as part of the 2020 Captain Swan Big Bang Rewrite-a-Thon)
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Henry Mills & Emma Swan, Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard & Emma Swan
Comments: 271
Kudos: 117





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective.

She had long, blonde hair that curled just so at the edges of a face with skin as fair as snow, save for the hint of a blush across the apples of her cheeks. Her eyes glinted green, like emeralds in the sunlight, and the fall of her lashes was thick and dark. Emma Swan looked like nothing so much as a fairy-tale princess, but if Emma Swan knew one thing about her life it was this: nothing about it was a fairy tale.

Her hair, for starters, was the product of nearly an hour’s work in front of a mirror most days, curling it and drying it and styling it just so. Twenty minutes perfecting the “no makeup” aesthetic with no less than three base layers before the foundation swept across her cheeks; the thickest mascara wand she could find and the darkest shade of black available completed the look unless she was feeling particularly ambitious and added lash primer. Contact lenses instead of glasses, though her eyes were naturally green which meant that at least one of her parents probably had green eyes, too, not that Emma knew for sure either way. But she was beautiful, which was a thing she did know for sure, capping it all off with a carefully curated collection of leather jackets and knee-high boots, black trousers and jeans and pencil skirts, for a look that said very clearly _"do not fuck with me"_.

Emma was her actual given name, or at least it was according to the one tangible thing--besides her eyes--that she knew she had gotten from her parents. The letters had been lovingly stitched into the hand-knitted blanket in which she had been found. Where she’d been _left_ , near a diner by the side of the road in Bumblefuck, Maine sometime in the first few hours after she had been born. Her last name, Swan, had been attached by the one family who had considered adopting her, and had stayed on every piece of official paperwork that followed her from foster home to foster home after they had traded her in to have their own kid. Sometime around her fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, soon after the first time she had run away, Emma had decided she might as well keep it as not. Something about believing in herself and saying " _fuck you"_ to fate because no one else was going to do it for her.

No fairy godmothers in this world.

Emma Swan also had a talent: she was good at finding people, and she proclaimed this fact on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private Investigations. Missing Persons. Bail Bonds.”

So, Emma Swan was twenty-eight, as of today; beautiful, but prickly, which was the nice way that people said it. “Unfeeling bitch” was what Graham Humbert called her, and most days, he meant it as a compliment.

Last night he had meant it to wound her. “Heartless bastard” was what she had called him in return after he’d crossed a line she had never intended them to cross. As Emma pushed the office door open, she was wondering if she should change it to “Emma Swan: Loner, Loser, Complicated Wreck” before deciding that would probably scare potential clients away.

And for now, at least, she still had a partner. If she hadn’t scared him away, too. Emma was furious just thinking about it--their partnership was supposed to be easy and constant, one of the few reliable things she’d found in this life she’d scraped together for herself.

“He’s not here, is he?” Emma asked, sighing, as she walked into the outer office.

“Mmmm?” Ruby murmured, not looking up from her makeup mirror as she fluffed her waist-length, red-streaked black curls until she was satisfied with their volume. “Graham just phoned, actually, said he was gonna be late.” She pouted into the mirror, testing the longevity of her red lipstick, and finally looked up. “Whoa, Em,” she said, gesturing at the cropped red leather jacket Emma had selected for the day’s ensemble. “What’s with the battle armor? You can’t be like this today, you have a client waiting.” Rubby snapped the mirror shut and nodded at the inner office door with her chin.

“Like what?” Emma challenged.

“Nope,” Ruby said. “Not going there.”

Emma glared, just for a second, and cracked a small smile. “Sleazy divorce case?” she asked, almost hopefully.

“Ah.” Ruby nodded, like that explained something. “You’re in that mood. Explains the outfit. So we’re not solving the mystery of True Love today, then?”

“No mystery,” Emma said. “Sooner or later, the people you love let you down. Life lesson from me to you, Ruby. At least then, they end up here--and we need the eighty bucks an hour.”

“You make it sound so tawdry,” Ruby complained.

“These are our people, Red.”

Ruby paused, eyeing Emma up and down one more time, lingering on the red leather. “What did he do?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Do I need to, like, rip out his throat or something?”

And--it wasn’t like Emma hadn’t felt a flash of _something_ when he’d kissed her in the office late the night before, it’s just that it was easier to feel nothing when what you were feeling, most of the time, just plain sucked.

Emma didn’t answer and the silence stretched out until Ruby expelled a breath. “Okay,” Ruby said, not sounding happy about it. “Whatever. But--trust me, Emma. We need this client.”

“He just needs me?” Emma asked. “Or, I guess, just one of us?”

“Actually,” Ruby said. “He said he wants you. He was specific,” Ruby said.

Emma had a good reputation for someone her age and especially for someone whose resume most closely resembled one of the people she was trying to track down. But the truth was that clients who came in with a specific personnel request generally went straight for Graham.

“Right,” Emma said.

“But lower your shields a bit and, you know, smile--but not the kind where you show your teeth because you don’t want to scare them off.”

Emma pushed the corners or her mouth upward with her middle fingers and made sure to bare as many teeth as she possibly could. “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

Ruby gave her a wink and an air kiss. “Any time, babe, you know that.”

Emma laughed, breaking into a real smile. “I’ll leave that to Victor, I think.”

“It’s cute,” Ruby said, “that you think he’d care, except to come and watch--or maybe help,” and smacked her lips again when Emma rolled her eyes and turned toward the door marked ‘Private.’ She ran a hand over her hair to smooth it, squared her shoulders, and straightened her jacket.

“Shoulders back, chin up, tits out, Em,” Ruby muttered. “It’s worth way more than a sleazy divorce case, I can smell it.”

Emma braced herself, opening the door and shutting it behind her.

Her visitor stood in the center of the room, facing the window and leaning on an ornate walking stick. He turned around at the sound of the doorknob and smiled, a sickly, fake thing that flashed just a hint of a gold tooth. “Ah,” he said. “Miss Swan. It’s nice to see you again. I’m Mr. Gold--”

“I remember,” Emma said, “sir.” _Sir_ because if what her landlord charged for this place was any indication, to say nothing of what his made-to-measure three-piece suit must have cost, Ruby was right: they needed this case.

“I have a proposition for you, Miss Swan,” he said. “I need your help.”

\--

Emma sank slowly into her swivel chair, turning to face her visitor and smiling politely--the tight, thin kind that showed no teeth. She took him in: His charcoal grey suit with a hint of a sheen on the fabric, the blood red dress shirt underneath, the black tie streaked with gold and just a hint of purple with a matching pocket square at his breast, the oversized gold ring on his fourth finger.

“It would appear,” he said with no preamble, his voice low and soft, “that I’ve been robbed.” He spoke with a smoothed-over accent; Scottish, perhaps, but every few words there was a syllable with a cadence so foregin Emma couldn’t even begin to place it.

“You seem unsurprised,” Emma remarked cautiously.

“Other attempts have been made in the past,” he said, tapping his cane lightly against the heel of one of his polished leather shoes. The walking stick, it turned out, was quite genuine, as the man had hobbled slightly when crossing the room toward the visitor’s chair at Emma’s desk. “I am a man of means with collections representing many varied interests and there are always those who come to me for--” he paused, and Emma sensed the deliberation with which he chose his words, “--help. Sometimes I am able to oblige them; other times, I leave them to their own devices.”

“You’re saying that you’re a target,” Emma said, “and that something has been taken from one of your collections?” He nodded, and his hair nearly brushed the tips of his shoulders. It was long for a man of his apparent dignity, with strands hanging around his face and nearly in his eyes.

“What can I say, Miss Swan?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m a difficult man to love.”

His eyes had clearly been following hers as she made her mental evaluation of him, and the effect he gave was almost that of a reptile.

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Gold,” Emma said, keeping the smile intact and speaking softly. “A missing object, stolen from your shop--it sounds like the kind of job the police should handle. Though I understand why a man in your position might choose discretion above all else, I also know that a man of your means would typically have no cause to approach someone like me directly--which tells me that whatever has gone missing is something of such value that you can’t even take the chance that anyone knows it’s missing.”

His gold tooth glinted again as he parted his lips and nodded his head, almost as if in appreciation. Emma took it as a confirmation--not that she needed it. Her life had taught her many things, and her skill at reading people had gotten to the point where if she was concentrated and detached, she could tell a lie better than a polygraph.

“What’s been taken from me, Miss Swan,” he said, “has been in my possession for longer than you’ve been alive.”

Emma nodded. What he said was not a lie.

“Okay,” she said, leaning forward and bracing her elbows on her desk. “So tell me what I’m looking for.”

“You misunderstand me, Miss Swan,” he said, tilting his head at an angle as he, too, shifted his weight forward. “I have no need for you to retrieve my stolen property. I merely require your assistance in apprehending the man who had the audacity to violate me in such a brazen manner.”

Emma gave Gold a long, hard look. “Robbery is a public menace. You’re asking me to aid in what could be construed as obstruction of justice. And you won’t even tell me what--?”

“Let’s just say,” he said, “that it’s a precious object and leave it at that. Further, I will give you my assurances that it poses no danger to anyone as long as I get it back as quickly and quietly as possible and that it remains my secret. But it is imperative that I find this person sooner rather than later. I am, you might say, on something of a schedule.”

“You have a funny definition of justice, Mr. Gold,” she said.

“My dear Miss Swan,” he said, the tooth glinting, “who said anything about justice?”

“What did they really do?”

“They stole,” he said, and nothing else.

Emma sat back and crossed her arms.

“I would hate to think that I’ve made a mistake in coming to you, Miss Swan,” Gold said, his voice still low, the words turning silky. ”It was my understanding that you are quite...dedicated in your chosen profession and have, for the most part, a record of success in finding those whom you seek.”

Emma managed not to flinch. He couldn’t know that much about her from the cursory background an internet search would reveal; couldn’t know that she never had found her parents, because the kind of assholes who hand-knitted their kid a blanket and then left said kid on the side of the road were also the kind of assholes who had left absolutely no trace of their identity in any system Emma had access to.

Had they ever even held her?

She’d never let herself hold her son, because Emma knew exactly what kind of asshole sent their kid out into the world on their own: the kind that couldn’t be a parent. The kind that needed to give that kid their best chance.

If she’d held him--if she’d given herself at least that--maybe it would have been easier.

Hell, it certainly couldn’t have been any harder.

“Miss Swan?”

Emma drew in a deep breath and set her shoulders. “And you have a history with this person, I take it?”

“Miss Swan,” he said, and the laugh that accompanied it was a distinctly unpleasant one, “you will find that there are very few people in our little corner of the world with whom I do not have history. And this man, I am sorry to say, has an unfortunate history of taking what is mine.”

Emma nodded, slowly. “Okay,” she said, with some reluctance. “I’ll check him out.”

“I’m sure you will,” Gold said smoothly. “In return for this service, you will of course expect payment.”

“Our hourly rate is--”

Gold was uninterested. “Of no importance,” he said dismissively. “You may invoice me, assuming I don’t find him first. If I do...let’s just say that bad things happen to bad people.”

“Is that a threat?” Emma asked, incredulous.

“More of an observation, or perhaps an incentive,” he said, and the sickly smile was back. “Do we have an understanding?”

She nodded again. “Deal,” she said.

“Grand,” Gold said, licking his lips.

“What’s going on in here?” said a voice from the doorway, lilting and accented and familiar.

“Graham,” Emma said, “Mr. Gold would like us to take a case on his behalf. Mr. Gold,” Emma turned her attention back to their new client, swallowing her reservations because she _was_ good at her job. She needed that comfort--that belief--because her job was all she had, no matter what Graham thought he wanted. “This is my partner, Graham Humbert.”

As Graham stepped forward and offered a hand, there was a look on his face that Emma had never seen before. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept properly--or at all--and his gaze focused on Gold as if he was the only thing in the room.

Something flickered across Gold’s face before he offered Graham his hand to shake. “Indeed,” he said. “Miss Swan and I have just struck a bargain.”

Emma was sure she imagined the flash of fear that briefly overtook Graham’s features.

\--

There were flowers on the table when Emma got home--she grabbed them and dumped them straight into the trash.

“Oh!” Her roommate, Mary Margaret, walked in.

It all came down to the number seven, which was the number of addresses she’d had in the past ten years, assuming that eleven months in the Arizona Correctional Facility for Women counted as an address. Graham had hired her, and she’d stayed, in spite of the lack of dental or any other benefits. Mary Margaret Blanchard had not been looking for a roommate, but they’d met each other and there was the offer of the spare room that wasn’t even properly a room, more like a lofted open space just big enough for a double bed and a small wardrobe, before either of them was quite sure what had happened. Something had clicked, and Emma had unpacked the three cardboard boxes that contained all of her possessions and tucked the one small cigar box that held her life, such as it was, away in a corner of the office.

She had a roommate and a job and friends and she hated Graham for putting all of that at risk for something that would never work. Because if Emma were the type who allowed herself to believe in such things, she’d have said that finding Mary Magaret--and Ruby, and Graham and her job and her life here--had been like coming home; as if she had always been meant to be there.

“Can you believe this shit?” Emma gestured at the flowers. “Graham think this is gonna work on me?”

“Yeah, no, those are mine,” Mary Margaret said, then corrected herself: “Were mine.”

“From the _married guy_? Seriously?”

“I know,” Mary Margaret said, then: “Wait. How did you know?”

“You’re an elementary school teacher,” Emma said flatly. “I’m a private investigator.”

Mary Margaret sighed. “It’s a disaster,” she said.

“It can’t be that bad if there are flowers,” Emma said, eyebrows raised.

“No, that was--no,” Mary Margaret said. “I just can’t seem to--I feel like a different person when I’m around him. It’s like I can’t help myself, like I have this need to be with him.”

“Trust me,” Emma said. “Married guys are never worth it, no matter how good the ‘flowers’ are.” Emma made exaggerated air quotes with her fingers. “If you need an itch scratched, stick to one-nighters with no attachments, like I do.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re--”

“Because I’m what?” Emma’s eyes flashed green in challenge. _Unfeeling bitch_ , he’d called her, then walked in on her meeting looking like shit, but otherwise as if nothing had happened between them.

That fit with what she knew of him; Graham was a kind, good-natured guy, and most days Emma felt lucky to have him in her life. It’s easy, between them.

“Never mind,” Mary Margaret said.

“No,” Emma said. “Tell me. What do I do?”

“You’re just,” Mary Margaret said, gesturing expansively, “protecting yourself. With that wall you put up.”

“Just because I don’t get emotional over men--”

“You don’t?” Mary Margaret was not the type of person who snorted derisively, which Emma was grateful for more at that moment than she might ever have been; especially since Mary Margaret had no real notion of exactly how much Emma was, in fact, protecting herself from.

Because she did not get emotional over men.

“All I’m saying,” Mary Margaret said, “is that the floral abuse tells a different story.”

“Come on,” Emma said.

“I mean it, Emma,” Mary Margaret said. “That wall of yours might keep out pain, but it will also keep out love.” Mary Margaret was all about “mawwaige” and “Twoo Wuv” and refused to give up hope that Emma would find both of those things.

God, was there something in the water today? This felt like the second time, at least, she’d been forced to endure some version of this conversation. One more minute and she was likely to start screaming about patriarchy and freedom and submitting herself to an institution that fails as often as it succeeds, and for what? A bullshit ideal of fairy tales and happy endings?

Certainly Mary Margaret’s sordid affair was a horrible ‘Exhibit A’ in the case for True Love.

“He kissed me,” Emma confessed, watching the progression of emotions cross her friend’s face: happiness, confusion, disappointment, resignation.

“And?”

“It wasn’t a bad kiss,” Emma admitted, watching Mary Margaret’s eyebrows shoot up. “It was nice, I guess. Easy.”

“And?” Mary Margaret said again.

“And,” Emma emphasized it, “I’m neither of those things?” She threw her hands in the air. “It’s not what I want, Mary Margaret.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a knock at the door before she could respond, and Emma went to answer it. Sheriff Nolan’s hand was poised to knock again as she opened the door, and Emma spared a glance at her roommate, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at the _married guy_ her friend had been not-so-secretly seeing.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emma said knowingly, and was surprised at David’s hand on her shoulder.

“I’m here for you, actually,” he said.

\--

 _Heartless bastard_.

Emma would have laughed, except she was crying and trying not to throw up at the same time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the death of her partner, Emma needs some time to get her shit together--to get her life together.
> 
> It's not an option that's really available to her, though, and when she gets her first lead in several days what she finds is NOT what she expected.

The sheriff insisted that Emma accompany him to the scene.

To see the body.

Emma walked as if through a fog, clammy and penetrant, following Nolan to his car and was in such a daze that she had no sense of where they were when the sheriff stopped the cruiser in front of an alley with a blank grey sidewall. Lights flickered, and the shadows of people moved among the lights; there was a glow of red, and then blue, from the parked ambulance that mercifully blocked her view of Gra--the body. She recognized Graham’s favorite work boots with their brown leather laces that she’d bought for him after he’d tripped on a tail job and broke the old ones, on feet that lay bent at unnatural angles to each other. Two men stood awkwardly together on the far side of the alley, nearly opposite her, and Emma got only a vague impression of a tall man with dark hair and a shorter, stockier one with cropped brown hair.

“What happened?” Emma asked, her voice lowered--out of fear, or respect for the dead, she couldn’t quite say.

Nolan turned toward her with sympathy in his eyes. “We’re honestly not sure yet. Some kind of attack, it looks like.”

“Attack,” the short and stocky man scoffed, stepping forward. “Is that what you call it when someone’s heart is ripped from their body?”

“Their _what_ from their _what?_ ” Emma hissed with a sharp look at the sheriff.

“We’re not sure yet,” Nolan repeated. “Do you know what he was doing here, Emma?”

 _We’ll run it like a basic skip-trace_ , he’d said, taking Gold’s description of their possible perp right out from under her and determined to run recon on his own, Emma ignoring the fact that he was right when he reminded her that they always ran ops that way--him laying groundwork before she went in on a mark.

“We are-- _were_ \--working a new case, if that’s what you’re asking,” Emma said. “But we had barely gotten started.”

They hadn’t even gotten a name, but it was fine; Graham had done more with less in the past. _Tall, slim, dark hair, unshaven, blue eyes_ , Gold had said. _Quite tan. Fond of black and leather in his aesthetic choices. Looks about 35 years old._

Nolan was still looking at her, so she said, “I can’t tell you any more than that.”

Emma had just let him go. It was another job, a good job, and they needed the money, and they would have worked it out eventually, Emma knew that, only now they wouldn’t. They’d found him at a bar, Emma suddenly remembered, so that answered the question of where Nolan had taken her. Graham must have traced their mark here, and come to get the lay of the land.

That’s when Emma saw him, the beautiful man who stepped out of the shadow to restrain his companion: tall, slim, dark hair, unshaven, in black and leather. She was too far away to see the eyes.

He looked familiar, somehow, and Emma took a few steps back, out of the harsh glow of a streetlight.

“Do you know him?” Nolan asked, gesturing at the two men. “Either of them?”

“No,” Emma said, and Nolan gave her a squeeze on her shoulder before walking toward the ambulance. Her estimation of the sheriff should have dropped just a degree after he didn’t notice the hesitation in her voice, except that she wasn’t ready to answer questions--yet--about Gold and his case, and there was a man at the crime scene who answered to Gold’s description of their possible perp.

She shot a glance at the haphazardly-parked cruiser and sighed; it was a long walk back to her yellow Volkswagen Beetle, but getting a clean VIN for a marked cop car would probably be more of a challenge than getting one for the Bug had been.

\--

The crime scene was clear by the time Emma returned, situating herself and her car with a view of the alley behind, she now knew, a bar called The Rabbit Hole. Emma wasn’t sure what she was looking for, just that she needed to be doing something, so she let herself lose track of time, finding the zone of just watching and waiting, her eyes casually trained on the back door where the Dumpsters were. She had her binoculars close at hand, on the seat next to her.

The door pushed open and someone walked out, his stride purposeful; Emma shifted forward in her seat, muscles tensing. He was tall and thin, his shoulders slightly broad, bulked up by the heavy jacket he wore. Emma grabbed her binocs for a closer look _,_ the fingers of her other hand curled around the door handle, ready to get out.

The man walking out of the building was Graham Humbert.

She dropped the binoculars on the seat and wrenched the door open, almost vomiting onto the pavement as she spilled out of the car and stood there, paralyzed. Graham hadn’t seen her yet, he seemed to be looking for someone, his eyes scanning the darkness until the slight frownlines eased. A man approached, slight of frame, his hair almost shoulder length. He, too, wore a coat, a long one made of some kind of animal skin that was unlike anything Emma had ever seen before.

It--almost--looked like crocodile skin, with its shimmery scales.

Just as he came apace with Graham, he reached out toward his chest, blocking Emma’s view, and wrenched his arm backward.

Emma screamed, trying to force her frozen legs toward the men just as Graham’s attacker stepped back and Emma got a clear view of Graham’s chest as he fell. Emma ran across the street just in time to see Graham hit the ground, trying to angle herself so that she could catch him. The eyes that met hers weren’t Graham’s gentle brown, though; they were piercing blue, the hair dark and falling over his forehead.

“Hello, beautiful,” he rasped. It was the man from the alley, the dark-haired one, and he had a gaping wound in his chest. “And here I didn’t think you’d notice.” His eyes squeezed shut for a minute and then were forced open again, looked her dead-on with something like a smile.

“Just like Milah,” he said, “when the crocodile took her from me.”

The attacker, meanwhile, had turned, again before Emma could see anything more than a flash of skin that seemed to glitter in the dim streetlights, a giggle echoing in the darkness of the night.

Emma jerked awake and gripped the wheel, her entire body shaking in the aftershock of the nightmare.

\--

The funeral was a different kind of nightmare.

The only faces she recognized belonged to their mutual assistant, Ruby; her grandmother; Mary Margaret; and the sheriff but Nolan was there with some blonde woman Emma had never seen before, a ring on her fourth finger marking her as the wife. An older man with a thick Italian accent, a red-headed man with a Dalmation and an umbrella, a group of shorter men and a thin auburn-haired woman in a severe habit--Emma had never seen any of them, had no idea that Graham knew someone in a religious order.

Emma had always assumed she knew Graham about as well as anyone, but it was a minor blow in a major string of them to discover she had been wrong. He was here--had been here--and they worked together, and now he wasn’t. And this--this was why she didn’t let herself get emotional over men. He--they--just, it would have been easy to let herself fall into him, “nice and easy”, as she’d said to Mary Margaret--but Emma was not nice, and she was not easy, and maybe she’d always worried that she would muck things up with Graham and it would end badly, but--

The people you love let you down: Emma had known that simple fact her entire life. But it was one thing to know that all of the people who were meant to care for her - her parents, Neal - were out there somewhere and it was a completely different thing to have Graham permanently gone from the world. It almost felt like he had been executed for the simple crime of caring for her in a way that she didn’t reciprocate.

 _Why are you so upset_ , he’d said.

 _I’m not upset_ , she’d said.

 _If that were true,_ he’d said, and she’d hated how reasonable he sounded, _you’d be sitting at the bar having a drink with me and not running away_.

But running away was what Emma had always done best.

 _That was way over the line, Graham_.

 _I need to feel something, Emma_.

Whatever it was he’d been looking to feel, she would never have been able to give it to him--and now he would never have it with anyone.

 _There’s a reason you’re alone_.

And then, near the back of the small crowd, Emma spotted the one other face she did recognize.

In the bright light of the day, it was clear that his eyes were, in fact, very blue--just like in her dream. He looked appropriately somber and not at all like he was at the funeral of the man he’d killed, but Emma still had to wonder--and Graham wasn’t one to hang around alone at a bar for recreational reasons.

 _I’ve got this, Emma_ , he’d said, and it had been normal and reassuring. Doing a job always put her on her focus, bringing out everything about her and Graham that worked best.

 _Emma,_ Gold had practically purred, and the way he’d lingered over the syllables, separating them out as though he was tasting each letter, had made Emma’s skin crawl. _It’s such a lovely name._

Near the front of the gathering stood a woman of medium height in sensible pumps and a black business suit, simple but exquisitely cut and fitted. She had dark brown hair that brushed the tops of her shoulders; her face was drawn and pale and at odds with her bold and perfectly-applied lipstick.

 _Regina_ , Graham had called her, the morning of the day he--when she’d stormed through the front door and past Ruby’s empty desk, into the back office as if she owned the place. _I told you, I’m fine_.

Regina’s grip on Graham’s arm suggested that she didn’t believe him. _You didn’t look fine when you left_ , she said, _and you don’t look fine now_.

Graham had looked suddenly worse than Emma had ever seen him, and the look he had thrown her had been enough for Emma to excuse herself.

 _It didn’t feel like a dream, Regina_ , she heard as she pulled the door closed. _It felt like a memory._

The service ended. Ruby and her grandmother had most of the mourners shepherded into Mrs. Lucas’ diner before Emma had properly gathered her wits enough to follow them out of the cemetery. She only knew where to find them from the text that had dinged on her phone as he was trudging toward her car, her boots making a soft thud against the pavement.

It was Sheriff Nolan who pulled her out of her thoughts and into the diner. The way his hand brushed against her shoulder was kind, and Emma had to repress the urge to lean against him. He was her roommate’s married boyfriend--she didn’t even like him that much half of the time--but the gesture charmed her, made her feel taken care of, and she needed that feeling more than anything. They stood there together for a moment until Emma nearly started to panic. Was she meant to say something now? Something about not breaking her best friend’s heart?

“Emma,” he said softly. “I know you can probably only see the worst in me, and I can’t even blame you.”

“I don’t,” she said, and she meant it, especially right then. Maybe for the first time right then. “I just think that someone I care about is going to get hurt, and I don’t want to see that happen. That’s all that matters to me.”

“Me too,” David said, and Emma knew it was the truth.

\--

Emma, Mary Margaret and Ruby were seated at a small four-top table in the center of the diner; Emma watched the swirl of people as it moved around her, the murmur of polite and meaningless chatter forming a low hum.

“Hey,” Emma said, nudging Ruby in the shoulder. “Do you know that guy?”

He hovered on the periphery and spoke to no one, much like he had done at the funeral, and Emma tried to remember if she had ever seen the man--the _mark_ \--before last night. Anything to distract her from the terrible awkward silence she found herself trapped in as Mary Margaret sat mute. Behind them and to Emma’s right, David Nolan and his wife sat in a booth, and Emma stopped counting the number of times Mary Margaret abruptly shifted her posture after the fifth desperate attempt to avoid eye contact.

“Tall, dark and brooding?” Ruby said, smiling just a little. She took a sip of her coffee and the mug left a ring on the table. “I’ve seen him, yeah.” Her eyes closed and her forehead creased in concentration. “Now that you mention it, though, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been in here since before you came to town. Works in a bar, I think. Left great tips.” “Which bar?” Emma said, already knowing the answer.

“The Rabbit Hole,” Ruby said. “And he is not the only hottie down there, the new girl is--” She sighed in appreciation.

“Did Graham know him?”

“I’d only ever seen Graham drink here, or with us at the office,” Ruby said, “same as you.” She frowned. “Why are you in detective mode all of a sudden, Em?”

“I just feel like I’ve seen him before,” Emma said.

_“It didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a memory.”_

Ruby gave her a sad smile. “Maybe was a lover in a past life,” she said wistfully, “but I’m pretty sure Graham didn’t know him.”

“I didn’t know Graham knew any of these people,” Emma pointed out.

“You don’t know anyone here?” Ruby looked startled.

“Do you?” Emma asked in surprise.

“Yeah, of course,” Ruby said. “Like, for as long as I can remember. Oh, honey, you’ve gotta get out more.”

 _“There’s a reason you’re alone_.”

“I apologize,” a voice interrupted, regal and commanding and not sounding sorry at all, “if I’m interrupting your hen party.” It was the well-dressed, well-coiffed woman from the cemetery--Regina--and, having secured their attention, she turned her ire on Mary Margaret.

“Miss Blanchard,” she said. “Do you have any idea why my son would have your credit card?”

Mary Margaret’s already-pale face went ashen as she reached for her wallet. “My credit card?”

“Did I stutter?”

Mary Margaret unzipped her wallet and shook her head. “Not at all, Ms. Mills.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Clever boy,” she said.

“You didn’t give it to him?” Regina asked, suspicious.

“Me?” Mary Margaret looked genuinely shocked. “No, Ms. Mills, of course not. Why would I?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Regina insisted.

“I swear to you,” Mary Margaret said, “I had no idea it was missing.”

“As if,” Regina said, stepping away from the table, “I would trust any promise of yours.”

“Hey,” Emma said. “I think you still owe my friend her credit card.”

“Do I?” Regina said, utterly uninterested as she leveled her glare at Emma. Her eyes ran around their table and she let loose a small gasp, or perhaps it was a growl. Emma turned to see David and Kathryn Nolan determinedly looking anywhere but at their table and turned back just in time to see Regina focus back on Mary Margaret. The look in her eyes was unreadable, but her expression was pure murder.

“I’m not sure you of all people are in a position to explain to me what I owe to anybody, Miss Swan,” she said, and left.

There was a moment of stunned silence in her wake before Emma said: “So, she’s kind of a hardass.”

\--

The sun was setting by the docks as Emma sat on a bench overlooking the ocean, watching the boats bob up and down. She wasn’t typically one for quiet; it had been the soundtrack for too much of her life.

 _“There’s a reason you’re alone_.”

No, she’d never liked the quiet before, and she didn’t like it now, either, not when it felt somehow more ominous. But the sky was a perfect shade of blue today, the air crisp and clean, and here and now, in that moment, she felt peaceful for the first time since David Nolan had shown up at her door.

Emma closed her eyes and took a breath, counting three before exhaling.

When she opened her eyes and looked around, she saw she wasn’t alone: a man walked along the docks, his steps slow and deliberate as he came toward her, his features, at the moment, impossible to discern. They were the only two people for as far as the eye could see.

Emma leaned back, tilting her head toward the sky, and took another breath.

The man was closer, and Emma could see that he was dressed all in black as he made his slow, steady way toward her.

His hair was so dark it almost looked black.

He was twenty feet away from her at most when he stopped, and Emma recognized him.

“It would seem,” the man from the alley said, “that we have a quiet moment.” It was the first time Emma had heard him speak. His voice was rough and accented but somehow soft, as though he was trying to persuade her.

“This isn’t over,” Emma said. “My partner is still dead.”

“It never is,” he agreed. “But for right now, let’s enjoy the quiet moment.” He nodded, gesturing with his left hand toward the ocean in front of them.

Emma found herself turning back toward the water as a wave crashed and bubbled up against the rocky shoreline.

Only--

There was a flash of silver where his hand should have been; when she turned to look at him, he was gone, and Emma woke up with her hand outstretched.

As though she hadn’t wanted him to leave.

\--

Emma stared at the door. _Swan and Humbert_.

Days had gone by and Emma went to the office and, faced with the door, worked on every case she could get her hands on except for the one that, she was certain, had led to Graham’s death. He had left no notes and had cleared his browser history.

Emma had a recovery program designed to undo just that. She kept it on a USB drive on her keychain.

She didn’t use it.

She was also ignoring the looks that Ruby kept giving her, in the morning and in the evening and when she left for lunch and when she came back. No new clients walked in and the files were getting thin--apparently all the world was as disgustingly in love as Mary Margaret, and they just hadn’t gotten caught cheating yet.

 _Swan and Humbert_.

The police had no leads. There were no witnesses. Emma hadn’t slept through the night since Graham had kissed her and she knew only one thing for sure: she couldn’t possibly be expected to stay here. Emma felt perpetually on edge, as if she was just waiting to turn around and see someone else gone. David _fucking_ Nolan had tried to explain to her the need for grief, right after he had tried to justify to her the lack of police progress, and she kept dreaming about the beautiful blue-eyed stranger, or suspect, or whoever the fuck he was--about whom she still had not told David.

One mystery, at least, had been solved. According to the fraud alert on Mary Margaret’s credit card, Henry Mills had been trying to make a payment to a Website called “WhosYourMama.org”.

“Henry hasn’t had the easiest life,” Mary Margaret said wistfully. “I guess it makes sense that he’d want to know--for sure, I mean, why someone would want to give him away.”

Emma froze.

“He’s a special boy,” Mary Margaret said. “Smart and creative but also lonely.” Mary Margaret had shrugged, and that had been the last they’d spoken of Henry Mills.

Emma had run a quick search on Regina Mills, however, and came up with surprising results: If Mr. Gold owned most of the property in this up-and-coming corner of the city, affectionately called ‘Storybrooke’ by the realtors and marketing gurus leaning hard into the old-timey-ness of it, it was Regina Mills who had her fingers in every pie that mattered everywhere else.

And she had known Graham.

But Emma had been correct in her first impression of the woman, she decided, watching as Regina settled herself into the chair facing Emma’s desk, her eyes taking in the small office as if for the first time, clearly unimpressed.

Regina Mills was a total hardass.

When Regina’s eyes met hers, Emma noted that Regina was unimpressed with what she saw there, as well. She was decked out in her ‘battle armor’ again today, though her curls were less curly and more limp and her eyeliner had probably slid slightly off her waterline and under her eyelid. There wasn’t quite enough makeup in her bathroom to color-correct the washed-out pallor of her normally fair skin or the rings under her eyes from the little sleep she’d been getting.

“Miss Swan,” Regina said, “I’m here to see what it is you’re doing to address the situation of Graham Humbert’s death.”

“Forgive me, Ms. Mills,” Emma said, “but I’m not sure what it is you expect from me in this instance. How did you know Graham? What made you come and find me?”

“I’m aware of your relationship with him,” Regina said.

“I didn’t have a relationship with him,” Emma retorted.

“Oh?” Regina’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows rose. “So nothing ever happened between the two of you? I have eyes everywhere, Miss Swan.”

“What--” _the fuck does that even mean,_ Emma finished silently. Out loud she said, “Nothing that meant anything.”

“He wasn’t thinking straight,” Regina said. “He said that things between us needed to change. I don’t know what I did to you, Miss Swan, to deserve this--” She seemed to catch herself suddenly, her face going cool and impassive. “And clearly you’re doing absolutely nothing to find out what happened.”

“Mom?” the speaker was short and so thin as to be scrawny. He had brown hair, and his eyes--

Oh _shit_. Oh, holy shit. Shit shit shit shit.

He looked--

Oh, god, he looked just like--

 _Fuck_.

“Henry,” Regina said sternly. “I asked you to wait outside while I spoke to Miss Swan.” Henry’s eyes, bright and wide, turned toward Emma and smiled.

 _You could have just asked me for the keys,_ he’d said, popping up from the backseat, holding them in his hand with a smile.

Neal’s smile.

“Emma Swan?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Emma said slowly.

Henry nodded, apparently satisfied.

“Henry!” Regina said, anger creeping back into her voice.

“Bye, Emma,” Henry said.

Emma turned back to Regina, who was completely in control of her emotions again.

The same could not be said for Emma.

“I don’t know who you think you are, Miss Swan,” Regina said, “but you led him to the path, putting thoughts in his head that were not in his best interest. He was self-destructing, and now he’s dead.”

Emma sat, silent.

“You were his...partner,” Regina continued, not bothering to hide her distaste at the word. “So I will say it again: what are you doing to address the situation of Graham Humbert’s murder?”

The words stung.

Just--she needed to get out of here. Surely there was someone in the area getting ready to skip bail--preferably far out of state with a big bounty. Two birds, one stone, and then the rent got paid instead of leaving Ruby to get evicted. Emma did not need Mr. Gold on her case, too.

“Excuse me, Miss Swan?” It was as if she had summoned him. “I--oh. Do excuse me.”

Emma definitely imagined the hint of a giggle underlying his words, but Regina Mills had a very visible reaction to her landlord’s peculiar mannerisms. “You,” she said, her entire body coiled like a snake ready to strike.

Gold walked in slowly. He was balancing a box on his arm, which he sat down gingerly on the desk that had been Graham’s before shifting his weight back against his cane. Turning his attention to Regina, he said: “I’m sorry, have we met before?” His voice was polite indifference, but Regina’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Regina Mills,” she said, standing and walking the few feet to the desk.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Mills,” Gold said smoothly, “I just came to express my condolences to Miss Swan.”

“We--I--have no update on your case yet,” Emma said, darting a glance at Regina.

For just an instant, Gold looked displeased, his features contorting and then smoothing themselves out. “I wanted to offer you these,” he said, gesturing at the box, “in case you wanted a keepsake. He rented an apartment that I own, and the police--”

“I don’t need anything,” Emma said, straining for politeness.

“I should tell you that these things are headed for the rubbish bin,” Gold persisted. “You really should take something.”

“All right,” Emma said. “Thank you, Mr. Gold.”

He inclined his head, almost a bow, and turned back toward the door.

Or at least, he tried to.

“If you would be so kind as to let me pass, Ms. Mills,” Gold said, “I’ll leave you to get on with Miss Swan.”

Regina stood stock still, obviously disinclined to move.

“Please?” Gold emphasized the request.

Something came over Regina as she complied, and Emma recognized the murderous expression in her eyes from their meeting at the diner. Gold nodded, first at Emma, then at Regina, and finally at Henry, who sat on a chair in the outer office reading a book so large it was practically falling off his lap.

The moment the door closed behind him, Regina whirled around to face Emma again.

“You were his _partner_ ,” Regina repeated, with actual venom in her voice now. “And clearly you’re doing absolutely nothing to find out what happened, so what is it that Gold promised you? What deal did he offer?” Almost to herself, Regina said, “What price were you willing to pay?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Emma snapped. “How did you even know Graham, anyway?”

“I don’t see how that is any business of yours, Miss Swan. But know this: if you’re working against me, I will see you fail, even if it is the last thing I do.”

“I can make it my business,” Emma said before she could stop herself. She stood up and gestured angrily at the door, her left hand waving emphatically. Regina’s eyes flicked to Emma’s wrist before she reached out, wrapping her hand around Emma’s arm. Her skin was cool and her demeanor remained calm while she inspected the tattoo of a five-petaled flower right at Emma’s pulse point, though her skin went pale and her cheeks flushed with emotion. Emma recoiled, twisting her arm out of Regina’s grasp. She backed away and massaged the skin at her wrist.

Her tattoo was private; almost no one had ever noticed it, not that Emma had allowed anyone close enough to see it in a very long time. It was a souvenir from a time--and a person--she’d moved on from, a way to remind herself that she was special.

It was meant to be a buttercup, but prison ink was not generally known for its artistry.

“Get the hell out of my office,” Emma said. “I have to get back to work.”

\--

Emma wasn’t on edge any more.

She was definitely, unequivocally over the edge, knee-deep in a recovered browser history full of real estate listings.

In fact, Graham appeared to have looked up property records and appraisals for most of the neighborhood--all of it owned by Mr. Gold, apparently--and then focused on one property in particular, an historic place down by the waterfront that had been converted into a bar. Emma clicked through the photos of artfully exposed brick and Edison bulbs until she came upon a picture of the owner: tall, sim, dark hair, unshaven and blue eyes. He was working behind the bar, seemingly unaware of the camera; in fact, she couldn’t find any photos of him head-on once she swapped her search up to look for the guy who owned The Rabbit Hole.

Because that was the other thing Graham’s prepwork revealed--he owned it outright instead of renting it from Gold, making him one of the lucky few, maybe even the only one, to escape the curse of that man’s visits.

 _I should inform you,_ Gold had commented in that strange accent of his, _when last our paths crossed he ran off with my wife and left my son without a mother_.

But Graham had done it, had found the guy based on a rough description and what must have been a hunch--there was no one Emma knew who was better than Graham at finding people who didn’t want to be found. And Hook, whoever he was, definitely didn’t want to be found. Though he seemed to have gotten his fairy tales mixed up, James Hook had no social media profile, and neither did The Rabbit Hole, except for photos posted and tagged by drunk patrons snapping selfies.

Fortunately, dark bars full of people making bad decisions were kind of an Emma Swan specialty.

Emma’s dress was bright flamingo pink, tight and short and shiny. The heels were black and made walking difficult, but not impossible; Emma had plenty of practice in turning these shoes to her best advantage on the job. A black leather jacket completed the look, effectively dressing down the cocktail dress into something more like bar attire and making her, she thought, more approachable. A little less _don’t fuck with me_ and a little more of an invitation to play with the fire, or at least make the resulting burn seem worth it.

It’s maybe more of an invitation than she intended, as a few brave souls risked losing appendages for the sake of a grope--really, it was a shame that Emma was trying to maintain a low profile. But she made it to the bar unscathed, and the gropers kept all limbs intact. Emma settled onto a bar stool and decided to keep her jacket on while she waited for James Hook to notice her. He stood maybe twenty feet away from her, flirting shamelessly with a trio of co-eds whom he probably should have carded. His movements were mechanical, practiced; though the co-eds didn’t seem to notice, Emma could tell that his attentions toward them weren’t even half-hearted. His smile was appropriately rakish but even from her seat it was clear to Emma that it didn’t reach his eyes.

Emma leaned back, closing her eyes and letting the bustle of the bar swirl around her while she waited. A black woman stood on a small stage tucked into a corner, crooning into a microphone a song that stirred something in Emma. She felt almost as if her worries could just float away, but the song was in the wrong key, leaving Emma feeling worse than she already did.

Because Henry had left something on Ruby’s desk: his book, he had left his book on Ruby’s desk.

 _Once Upon a Time_ , gilded and in an old-timey script on brown leather binding that had seen better days. The book was heavy and awkwardly-shaped and there was no chance in hell the kid had left it by accident. She needed to get it back to him, and she told herself that the reason she hadn’t already done so was because she didn’t want to deal with Regina again but really she wasn’t sure if she could look at Henry and not admit to herself what she knew to be true.

The song ended and Emma opened her eyes.

The smile was even more devastating up close; the eyes, even more blue.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma’s tracked down her suspect but then he looks into her eyes like he can see her, like he recognizes her–
> 
> And it’s a big fucking problem.  
> She doesn’t trust him. They are not a team. No matter what he says or how blue his eyes are when he reads her like an open book.

“I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting,” James Hook said. “A woman such as yourself deserves my full and prompt attention.”

His voice was familiar; exactly as she had heard it in her dream down to the cadence of his accent.

“Does that line ever work?” Emma asked.

His eyes twinkled with appreciation. “I,” he said seriously, “will let you know, yeah?”

He was wearing eyeliner, kohl smudged around his eyes. Blue button-up shirt--partially undone, matched his eyes, would look even better on the floor--buttoned waistcoat, jeans that showed off his--

 _Fuck_.

Emma needed a drink before she ended up like one of the co-eds.

“MacCutcheon,” she said simply.

“How do you like it?”

“In a glass,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Tough lass,” he said with a laugh, pouring her a shot.

“Yeah, well,” she said, picking up the shot glass and downing it in one. The condensation left a ring on the cocktail napkin. “It’s been a long day, and I’m thirsty.” She looked around, taking in more of the place--anything to look at instead of staring at Hook and his partially-unbuttoned shirt. “What’s with all of the swords?” Emma asked, gesturing at a wall covered in weapons.

The Rabbit Hole fell on the upside of ‘dive’, but only just barely. Maybe it was the Edison bulbs. The soft yellow glow gave everything a patina of ‘vintage’ instead of ‘grimey’. “And what are those, boat hooks?”

“Aye,” he said.

“What are you, some kind of sailor?”

“In another life,” he said, the fake grin stretching across his face, “I served in the Royal Navy.”

“You’ve practically got an armory in here,” she said.

“That’s the idea,” he agreed.

“You don’t seem like the type of guy to collect old-fashioned weapons.”

“Aye,” he said again, the eyes twinkling--again. “I collect blondes from bottles, too.”

Emma was a natural blonde--probably another legacy from one of her parents. She returned his gaze and said only, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

There it was: the real smile. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps I would. James Hook.” He held out his right hand to her, and Emma shook it, which was when she noticed that he only had the one.

“I know who you are,” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “So you’ve heard of me? Well, it’s always nice to leave an impression.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “You have. You’re handsome, and charming--”

“Do go on,” Hook said, shifting his weight against the back counter.

“The kind of guy who--now, stop me if I’ve got this wrong--steals a man’s wife and leaves a boy motherless, then keeps up the grudge by breaking into his home and stealing from him again.” Emma watched him during her recitation. This was her favorite part: skips always broke down when the hot piece of ass they’d been planning on nailing turned the tables and cuffed them.

Not in the fun way, either.

But Hook just looked at her, stepping forward again and bracing his elbow against the bar, his chin in his hand. His fingers curled against his upper lip, his eyes were wide and innocent, and the fake grin had returned; the change was so smoothly done it was--almost--imperceptible.

“Sounds like a lovely tale,” he said. “But I’m going to wager the truth is rather more gruesome.”

Emma was calm. She was focused. And he was not lying.

“Besides,” Hook said evenly, “I’m going to need you to be a mite more specific in your accusations; you see, I’ve had many a man’s wife.”

“And I need you,” Emma said, matching his tone, “to return what you’ve stolen.”

His smile--the fake smile--faltered. Just for a second. “Tell me something, love,” Hook said, leaning into her personal space, his eyes never leaving hers, “If a woman comes to you and begs you to take her away, is that theft?” He ran his tongue over his lower lip and winked at her.

“But--why would she leave him?” Emma asked before she could stop herself. The son, _they had a son_ \--

What were they even talking about?

“Because he was a coward,” Hook said easily. “Because she loved me.”

Emma pulled herself away from his gaze. Whatever was going on here--he wasn’t lying.

“So, lass,” he said, “you know who I am, but you won’t even tell me your name?”

“What fun would that be?” Emma said.

“If you’re helping Rump-- _Gold_ ,” Hook said, with particular emphasis on the name, “I’m afraid you’re fighting for a lost cause.”

“I’m not fighting for anything,” Emma said, “except for my fee. Tell me what you know about Graham Humbert’s death.” She grabbed his wrist. “And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret--I’m pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me.”

“He came in here the other evening, on the hunt,” Hook said, biting down hard on the ‘t’. “He often did. It’s rather a target-rich environment, as you can see.” He gestured at the crowded room and leered. “That’s the last time I saw him.”

Emma smiled, the kind that showed no teeth, that was small and controlled, and tightened her grip on his wrist. With her other hand, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it and scrolled to David Nolan’s entry. “He came here looking for you the night he died,” she said. “A fact I think the sheriff--” Emma held up the phone to show him “--will find fascinating, don’t you?”

He started to pull away, but Emma twisted his wrist just enough to put pressure on it--enough that pulling away would make a scene and potentially force someone to call the sheriff anyway. The singer finished a song to a scattering of applause, and Emma kept her grip and her gaze on Hook.

“Well done, lass,” he said. Emma let go of him and his hand reached up to rub the back of his neck. He had rings on two of his fingers and his thumb, and a freaking earring, a black stud. “You’ll be Emma Swan, then.”

“There goes my air of mystery,” she deadpanned.

“On the contrary, love,” Hook said, licking his lips again. “You’ve bested me. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has done that.”

“Is that a joke?” Emma said drily. “Because you’re a terrible liar.”

“Ask me what you’ve really come here to ask, Swan,” he said, and something in his face had shifted, like he had dropped the act of whatever part he was trying to play. His eyes were serious and the tone of his voice had lowered.

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not,” Hook said.

Emma believed him. _Shit_.

\--

“Now then,” Hook said. “Emma Swan. Bail bonds, private investigations. Twenty-eight years old?”

They weren’t in the bar anymore.

According to the paperwork Graham had pulled, Hook had owned The Rabbit Hole for more than twenty years--clearly a typo as the man appeared exactly as Gold had described him: mid-thirties, no more, no less. It was difficult to picture him running off with a woman Gold’s age.

 _He’s older than he looks,_ Gold smirked, and had looked at Emma in a way that made her want to shower. _And rather partial, I’m afraid, to brunettes._

Emma had confirmation of this, at least, when Hook had called out to a beautiful brunette in a micromini, tights and an artfully ripped t-shirt. _Lacey, my darling, cover for me here, will you_?

She’d laughed and given him--and Emma--a wink, and it was obvious what she thought Hook and Emma were doing, and why they needed cover. _I’ve got this, Jamie_ , she’d said.

And he’d taken Emma to a small but immaculate office, dimly lit, rimmed with books, and offered her a chair with a bow before taking a seat behind the desk. _She’s new,_ Hook had said of Lacey, _but she does the job like she’s been here for decades_. Something about that had amused him; Hook seemed consistently to be amusing himself with jokes only he understood. Any man who kept a skull-and-crossbones on the wall was definitely a man with an unusual sense of humor--in fact, this room had a distinct nautical theme, with a red flag draped above the black one and an honest-to-goodness ship in a bottle on his desk, and it was all a far cry from the badly-curated murder-tinged whimsy that made up the decor of the main bar.

“That’s oddly specific,” Emma countered. “Do I, like, get a prize if you’re right?”

“An educated guess,” Hook answered, and said nothing else as his eyes settled over her. Emma felt like she was being evaluated; not the first time that had happened, and she had no idea what he thought he was looking for.

“So, then,” he said. “Your Graham Humbert came looking for me.”

“He wasn’t my anything,” Emma said quickly. Maybe too quickly.

“Aye,” Hook said. “Of that I’m well aware.” He twisted his thumb against the metal of one of his rings and broke eye contact, looking down and away from her. “We weren’t friends, you know. Barely even acquainted. But you might say that we had certain connections in common.” Hook looked at her quickly and looked away again. “I hadn’t seen him in as long as I can remember.”

There was something strange underlying the words. Not a lie, but not the truth. And something about the phrase tickled Emma’s memory, like she had heard it somewhere before.

“He was involved with Regina Mills,” Emma said, realizing it at the same moment she said it.

“Indeed he was.” Hook made a sound, almost like a bark, and it took Emma a moment to realize it was a laugh. There was no amusement in it. “You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but she rather held his heart in her hands.”

Emma winced.

“Apologies, love,” Hook said quickly, and with apparent sincerity. “That was in rather poor taste, I admit.”

“You were too, weren’t you?” Emma asked instead of acknowledging his half-assed apology. “Involved with her?”

Another harsh laugh escaped him. “Indeed I was,” he said, “though not in the way you’d think. I did some work for the family. A long time ago.”

Emma smirked. “A man who used to be a sailor and now owns a bar?”

“‘Used to be’ is right, Swan,” he said, “but one might consider the bar payment.” He did that thing again, where he over-emphasized the harsh consonants. “For services rendered.”

“You realize you are the only one in this entire neighborhood who owns their property outright instead of paying rent to Robert Gold?”

“Am I?” He examined his fingernails. “That’s fortuitous.” It was obscene, the way Hook made words sound, but Emma knew a distraction when she saw one. This man used words as deflections, armor not unlike her collection of leather jackets.

“She came to see me,” Emma said.

“Did she?” That got Hook’s attention. “And what did you think of Her Majesty the Queen?”

“Her what now?”

“Regina, love. Latin.”

“You speak Latin?” Emma’s eyebrows definitely went up.

“And Greek,” he pointed out, smirking.

“They teach you that in the Royal Navy?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Emma’s head was beginning to hurt. This was shaping up to be the world’s worst first draft of “Who’s on first”--she wasn’t getting anywhere, and she needed another drink.

“What did she want?” Hook asked, and for the first time, there was genuine curiosity in his tone. He twisted behind him, pulling out a bottle, then repeated the process and came up with two glasses pinched between his thumb and forefinger, placing one in front of her. He pulled the cork with his teeth, poured himself a shot, and then gestured at her with the bottle.

Emma gave him a look.

“You’re something of an open book, Swan,” Hook said, the picture of innocent hospitality, “or did you not want another drink?”

“Regina wanted to know,” Emma said, ignoring his outstretched hand, “what I was doing about Graham’s death.”

“Don’t make a man drink alone, love.”

“I don’t want a drink,” she lied. “Or a man.”

Hook pouted. “Now who’s not telling the truth?”

Emma took the bottle from his hand and poured herself three fingers’ worth.

“I do find that spirits can be an excellent solution to so many of life’s problems,” Hook said with false cheerfulness, “so I am glad to see that you are making progress.”

Emma left the glass on the desk and leveled a glare at him.

“Are you?” he said, raising his eyebrows, “making progress?”

There was a knock on the door at the same time as it opened, and a young man stepped in. Nearly as tall as Hook, he had long, dark blonde hair that he’d slicked back, leaving some fringe to fall messily at his temples.

“Alright, Liam?” Hook said.

The young man--Liam--coughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, only Lacey said you were back here--”

“And you wanted to interrupt?” Hook asked, a mix of exasperation, fondness and something sharper in his voice.

Liam shrugged.

“Swan,” Hook said, “allow me to present my lit--younger brother, Liam, who was _just leaving_.”

Emma nodded at him, with his slightly-less-blue eyes and the curious way they watched her.

There was a look in Hook’s eyes as his brother walked out that Emma was not prepared to acknowledge. She pushed her untouched tumbler of rum back toward him and snapped, “Enough. Why did Graham come here to see you?” Emma demanded.

Hook shrugged.

“He tracked you down through property records,” Emma said. “Because the Mills Organization paid you in real estate for work you did for them a long time ago?”

“So it would seem,” he said.

“You know it says on the deed that you’ve been the owner here for as long as I’ve been alive?”

“Does it?” he smirked. “And yet I’ve retained my youthful glow.”

There it was again--not a lie, but not the truth.

_He’s older than he looks._

Emma sat, toying with the tumbler she had pulled back toward her seat, running her forefinger around the ring of the glass and saying nothing.

“What can I say, Swan,” he said. “‘ _I contain multitudes_.’ Not unlike your Graham Humbert.” He looked at her as though he was expecting a reaction; Emma stared at him.

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Ah,” he said, as though to himself. “Not a believer, then--well, surely that will stop you getting killed.”

Hook considered her for a moment before tossing back his shot, then said: “Walt Whitman, lass. American poet.”

“Didn’t study poetry at any of the high schools I got kicked out of,” Emma said. “What does my listening to you recite poetry and mutter to yourself have to do with Graham?”

Hook shook his head. “Absolutely nothing, love,” he said. “Merely pointing out that you might be surprised by what they teach you in the Royal Navy.”

“You don’t know anything about what I believe,” Emma said sharply.

His blue eyes blazed. “I know that everything you think you believe is wrong,” he said.

“A man is dead, Hook,” Emma said. “I need you to stop fucking around and give me back whatever it is you’ve taken.”

“She’s dead, Swan,” he said sadly, the fire gone just as quickly as it had come, “and whatever that bloody crocodile has you looking for, I don’t have it.”

He had that look again.

 _Crocodile_.

 _“Just like Milah, when the crocodile took her from me._ ”

“His wife?” Emma said. “Look, I’m sorry she died, but Graham--Graham was murdered.”

“Died,” Hook snorted. “Like it was some kind of accident--”

“That’s not what I said,” Emma protested, feeling suddenly on the defensive.

“--lass, it was no more of an accident than Humbert laid out in the alley.” Hook poured himself another shot and held it. “And you, Swan, helping him? I fear we’re working at cross purposes.”

“I’m just here to retrieve something on behalf of my client,” Emma said, exasperated and confused, “and to get paid Same as Graham, only he ended up dead and I would prefer to avoid that.”

“It’s a shame, really, Emma,” he said, apparently not listening. “I think we could make quite the team.”

“And what,” Emma wanted to know, “would our objective be?”

Hook paused and looked at her before he drank the second shot, and Emma still had no idea what he was looking for. He took a breath and said: “To avenge your partner,” he said, as if it would be that simple. “To exact revenge on the man who took my hand, Rumplestiltskin.”

**\--**

“Swan!” Hook called, rushing after her. “Swan, wait up!”

Emma was ten or fifteen feet out the door of The Rabbit Hole when she doubled back quickly and pushed herself against him. “Whoa!” she cried. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Hook smiled at her and pulled them closer together. “It’s about bloody time.”

Emma hit him. “I seem to have a shadow,” she said, gesturing at the figure running into the darkness--the one that had lunged itself at her and forced her up against Hook.

“I suppose,” Hook said, pretending to consider it, “that’s a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but next time don’t stand on ceremony.”

Was the man insane? “Do you have any idea what you sound like right now? Who the fuck is Rumplestiltskin?”

Hook’s face fell. “I sound like a crazy person,” he said. “Apologies, love, I realize Humbert didn’t--” He paused, took a breath. “Would you settle for ‘dashing rapscallion’?”

“Excuse me?” Emma stuttered.

“As opposed to ‘crazy person’, Swan,” Hook pushed, and then leaned in closer at her continued silence, angling his head so their eyes were level. “Scoundrel, perhaps?”

He was close enough to--

He was very close.

“I think, Swan,” he said, very softly, his eyes boring into hers, “that you are not the only one with a shadow. Don’t turn,” he warned, “just look at me.”

The full focus of this man’s attention was nearly unbearable. Emma desperately needed to break eye contact and maintain her wits, which was how she noticed the red streak on his shoulder.

Where she’d grabbed him.

Unfortunately, that drew his eyes to the spot as well, and he knew immediately what it was.

“Swan,” he said, and he sounded disappointed. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” Emma insisted. “Just, the jerk who came after me must have had a knife or something.”

“Give me your hand,” Hook said.

“What?” Emma said, trying to pull away.

He wouldn’t let her. “It’s cut,” he said, getting impatient. “Let me help you.”

“No,” Emma said, taking a definitive step back. Hook countered by stepping forward, back into her personal space. “It’s fine.”

“Swan,” he sighed. “It’s not.”

And he ran his hand down her arm, curling his fingers around her wrist and lifting it for closer inspection, balancing her hand on his left wrist against his prosthetic.

“I’m not taking medical advice from a man who has named himself after a character in a fairy tale and who thinks my client can spin straw into gold,” Emma muttered. “Not even when he suddenly decides to be a gentleman.”

Hook’s face twisted, that already-familiar smirk pulling at his mouth as he took something out of his pocket. “I,” he said, and his tone was serious in spite of his expression, “am always a gentleman.” He looked at Emma through eyelashes that were thicker than hers were after several rounds of lash primer as he repeated his bit with the cork and moved to pour the contents over the small slash in her palm.

“What is that?” Emma asked suspiciously, then swore as the liquid hit her skin.

“It’s rum,” Hook said. “And a bloody waste of it.” He handed the flask to her before she could refuse and pulled out a handkerchief from his coat pocket, pressing it into her hand before Emma could try to pull away again and tying it off with his teeth.

Just--his teeth . Why?

His eyes never left hers, not even as he stepped away from her.

“He’s gone,” Hook whispered.

Emma sighed and took a swig of the rum in resignation. “Scoundrel it is, then,” she said, taking a definitive step backward and crossing her arms across her body in the universal signal for _back off_. Because she knew what he was doing, she had seen this movie before, and it hadn’t ended well.

They were not a team.

They _could not_ be a team.

“Why were you following me?”

“I wanted to continue our conversation,” he said. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Emma shook her head slowly.

He grinned, shrugged. “And," he said, "I would like to see Regina Mills. I was hoping you would be so kind as to facilitate transportation.”

“You don’t drive?”

“I don’t drive a car,” Hook said. “It’s not by choice that I live here in the city, love, it’s by necessity.”

Emma felt her resistance wavering. “What makes you think I’d be willing to help you?”

“You seem,” Hook paused, as if searching for the correct word, “motivated.”

“What happened to cross purposes?”

“I look at this very simply,” Hook said. “I help you get what you want, and it gets me what I want. No more, no less. Besides, I find that I quite fancy you--when you’re not yelling at me, that is.”

“I don’t understand you,” Emma said.

“The mystique is part of my charm, I assure you,” Hook said, raising his eyebrows.

But she had already given in to whatever scheme this was, had given in the minute she pushed herself against him.

The minute he had held her arm and pushed into her space.

Emma gestured for him to go ahead, and they started walking to her car. Hook took in the careworn yellow Beetle with a grin on his face. “Quite a vessel you captain here, Swan,” he said, pulling the door open on the passenger side.

“It seemed like the best choice at the time,” Emma said softly, meaning it, momentarily hating herself for how wrong she had been--and how much this felt like the same beginning all over again. She ran a quick address search on her phone and came up with nothing; it was odd, given the extent of the Mills Organization’s influence.

“I know where she lives, lass,” Hook said. “I’ll navigate.”

Emma pulled out of her spot, the silence growing between them, interspersed at odd intervals with his muttered directions until he spoke. “You know, Swan, most people would find your silence off-putting, but I should warn you that I love a challenge.”

“No challenge,” Emma said. “I’m not looking for someone who’s gonna give his heart to the world, or some true love riding to my rescue.”

“But?” Hook prompted.

“I mean,” Emma said, dripping with sarcasm, “somewhere in the universe, there's gotta be a guy who'll keep me warm when I'm cold, feed me when I'm hungry and maybe, on occasion, take me dancing.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not it. You’re afraid--to talk, to reveal yourself.”

“Am I?” Emma said flatly. “What are we doing now? What happened to ‘a bit of an open book’?” She finished with a horrible imitation of his accent.

“You’re afraid to trust me.”

“Afraid to trust the guy who believes in fairy tales, Captain Hook?” Emma snorted. “However did you guess?”

“Bartender’s a sympathetic ear, love,” Hook said, “but I don’t need you to share. You have that look in your eyes.”

Emma’s entire body went still.

“The one,” Hook said, as if she didn’t already know--didn’t own a freaking mirror--hadn’t seen the look on his face that very night, “you get when you’ve been left alone.”

“Now I’m some kind of lost girl?” Emma forced herself to laugh. “Nice try, Hook, but my world ain’t Neverland.”

He made a noise, halfway between the unamused bark-laugh and a sigh, and said: “My point, Swan, is that an orphan’s an orphan.”

Emma said nothing, but Hook pressed on. “And True Love--well, that’s the rarest magic of all, or so they say. Have you ever even been in love?”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him, took a deep breath, and lied. “No,” she said simply. “I have never been in love.” She pulled the car against the curb and turned off the ignition. “We’re here,” she said.

“Who’s the guy, Swan?” he said, and his voice was almost free of affect. She could--almost--believe he meant it.

“What guy?” Emma said, because fuck him and his open-book bullshit.

“The one,” Hook said as if it was obvious, “who left you with such a high opinion of me.”

Emma got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie Hook insists Emma accompany him to meet Regina Mills.  
> And then he tells her a story.
> 
> Neither of those things goes particularly well.

_I’m out on a case tonight_ , Emma texted Mary Margaret while she waited for Hook to catch her up. _Enjoy having the place to yourself,_ she added before slipping the phone back into a pocket. The text was meant to give her something to do, provide some kind of quick break for her mind and her thoughts to settle, but Hook’s mere presence seemed to make that impossible. The man himself was impossible--impossibly beautiful, impossibly infuriating, impossibly insightful--and he was still, technically, at a minimum, a person of interest in an active homicide investigation even before Emma considered her own case.

Still. He said he hadn’t done it, and Emma believed him. She was attracted to him, too, like that was even news--undoubtedly Hook had admirers of all genders, between his dark good looks and his attitude and the way he looked at you like you were the only thing that mattered in the world.

“Do me a favor, Swan, when we go in there,” he said seriously, and he was doing exactly that, looking intently at her, and his eyes were just so ridiculous and blue as he nodded toward the well-lit lobby of the Mills’ Organization office building. “Don’t believe I’m as crooked as I seem to be. I haven’t lived a good life, and I’ve done worse things than you can ever imagine. But if you can trust me, just a little--”

“Right,” Emma said. “The team thing again.”

“I think we can help each other, Swan. I’m not much for loyalty, but I’ll swear allegiance to whomever can help me. I was hoping it’d be you.”

“You want to kill him, don’t you?” Emma interrupted, because she had figured out at least that much in between the fairy-tale nonsense he’d spouted. Emma understood pissed, she understood revenge, she understood needing allies and most of all she understood two fucking years in Tallahassee and--

 _“You could have just asked me for the keys,”_ Neal had said, and smiled.

 _“Bye, Emma,”_ Henry had said, and smiled.

Hook was still staring at her. Deep breath.

“Gold took more than your hand from you,” she said, not asking. “He’s the one that killed her. That’s what this is all about for you.”

“You’re quite perceptive, Swan, for someone who’s never been in love,” he said.

Emma shrugged.

One second more of his eyes on her, Emma feeling like he could drill a hole into her head, and then his entire expression shifted all over again. “Alas, in this world, we are slaves to time, and it is getting quite late for a social call. Tick-tock, love, and put your hand right there, that’s a good girl.”

He led her not to the building but back to her car, talking over her protests. “Believe me, Swan, you don’t want to be on Regina’s radar yet any more than you already are. Give me but a moment to work my charms on the security guard before we set sail, yeah?” He held the car door open like a proper gentleman.

Emma looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Try something new, darling,” he said, his eyes pleading. “It’s called trust.”

Slowly, Emma nodded. “Get on with it, Hook,” she said, sitting down. “And don’t think for one second I’m taking my eyes off of you.”

“I would despair if you did,” Hook said with a wink, and walked in.

\--

Emma pulled the car door closed and immediately regretted staying behind, though the view as Hook walked away was nothing to sneeze at. Her hand balled up into a fist as she banged it against the glass of the window; this was a bad idea.

She wasn’t sure if she meant the scheme--or Hook.

 _The look you get in your eyes when you’ve been left alone_.

Emma sighed, giving one last bang on the glass, and wondered if she should just start the car and drive away.

“Be careful, Emma,” Hook said from the seat next to her, and Emma jumped. “You’re making a mistake.”

“I don’t want to talk to you about this,” Emma said, closing her eyes.

“You can’t always run just because you’re frightened,” Hook said. “Graham’s gone and you’re a part of something new and you’re already afraid.”

“Besides Graham, I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of anything,” she whispered.

“But you could be,” Hook said, reaching for the chain that hung around his neck and pulling it off, dangling a ring in the empty space between them. “Keep this,” he said. “You could do with a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?” Emma asked, but a loud knock on the window startled her awake.

“Forgotten me already?” Hook asked with a smirk. “Come, Swan, I’ve secured us an audience with Her Royal Highness, Regina Mills.”

\--

Regina Mills’ office was a wide room, well-lit, with a wall of windows.

A shiver passed through Emma as Hook’s hand fell from the base of her spine, where it had been since they’d gotten on the elevator, a moment before they stepped through the door.

The decor was black and white and stark, tasteful and minimalistic, and the centerpoint was a desk facing away from the window wall. To access it, Hook and Emma had to walk down a sort of allee that showed off the inlay floor; on one side was a table that could seat six and on the other was a white couch facing a fireplace, with a statue of a horse anchoring the mantle. The wallpaper was a grim silhouette of a forest and a heavy chandelier dangled from the ceiling, the one point of color a large bowl overflowing with Red Delicious apples. Regina’s desk had no front piece--it balanced on a pair of elaborate sawhorses and gave anyone who cared to look a view of her legs, which were now on display as Regina was wearing a skirt with her jacket as opposed to the trousers Emma had seen earlier in the day. Like maybe the job of threatening Emma Swan had required a wardrobe change.

As for the woman herself, she was in a rage.

Emma was giving serious consideration to the idea that rage was Regina’s perpetual state; still, whatever Emma had seen of her that afternoon was nothing when taken against her reaction to the presence of Hook. And her, Emma. And her presence, there, in the company of Hook. Emma’s own outfit probably wasn’t helping matters, either--at least when it came to Regina, but Hook had more than once had his eyes trained, in a most ungentlemanly fashion, on her ass, and seemed to enjoy her outfit very much.

Yay.

Regina Mills was actually, by all appearances, several levels above rage and they were barely through the door. Even her eyes seemed to be on fire, alight with heat that was surely capable of melting steel. “Captain Hook,” she said silkily, her voice attempting to suppress all of the emotion already on display. “I’m positively delighted to see you again.”

Emma did not need to be either calm or focused to know that was a lie. The face was a dead giveaway.

“I was sure you would be,” Hook said, spreading his hands and inclining his head in a parody of a bow. The lack of affect in his voice was shocking--dry, sharp and uninterested; Emma suddenly missed the gentle touch that she had not invited at the small of her back as she was confronted with this stranger and his expressionless face. Even the liveliness of his eyebrows was missing, though Regina’s eyes still looked capable of shooting fire as her eyebrows went straight up into her hairline.

“The question is,” Regina said, “how you knew to find me at all.”

“It is rather, isn’t it?” Hook said, and nothing else, merely waiting for Regina to continue.

She was quiet for a moment and her gaze fell on Emma. “And the Swan girl,” she said dismissively. “Not the normal sort of company for a man like Captain Hook, even after all of this time.”

It was the name he’d given to the sleepy security guard--the name that had granted them entry--and it still startled Emma to hear it again. Was it somehow a real thing, and not just a joke? Had that been his rank in the Navy?

“Oh, Regina,” Hook sighed. “I thought you knew me better than that, after ‘all of this time’. You of all people should know I tend to favor brunettes.”

Gold had said much the same and Emma was enough of a detective to have deduced that the former--the late--Mrs. Gold must have had brown hair, only the comment clearly meant something else to Regina. Her eyes narrowed and Emma was, briefly, on her side--that was positively the worst excuse for making a pass Emma had ever seen, and she had once been picked up by the guy sleeping in the backseat of her stolen car.

Hook stood impassively; there was something charged in the air between them.

Understanding dawned on Regina’s face. “The maid,” she said flatly.

Hook nodded and gave another bow. “I do apologize,” he said, self-evidently not sorry at all. “I know you thought you were the only one who could charm Nurse Ratched and fly one out of the cuckoo’s nest. Given the circumstances, however, it seemed wise to acquire some leverage.” Hook’s face contorted into a leer as he said, “But then, you would know all about that--wouldn’t you?”

Regina’s expression, if it was possible, got even darker; Hook nodded, apparently satisfied.

“What are you doing here, Captain?”

“I’ve come to condole with you on the loss of your pet,” Hook said, and his sharp consonants were back, harsh and pointed now instead of playful and flirtatious, and Emma worked to hide her flinch.

“Was it you?”

“I’m flattered, Regina,” Hook said, holding up his left hand, “but we both know this is hardly capable of such a feat.”

“What happened to Graham Humbert?” Regina demanded. It was a command and Regina clearly expected to be obeyed.

Hook seemed equally determined to disappoint her, raising his eyebrows with a little smile. It was not a real smile, Emma noticed. It wasn’t even the fake smile he’d bestowed upon the co-eds at the bar.

It was a smile that had been twisted, made into something dark and cruel.

Hook stood silently until Regina’s hands balled up into fists on her desk. Then: “The Dark One,” he said simply.

“That’s not possible.” Regina’s hands relaxed and she trilled a laugh. “How much of your own bar’s rum have you been drinking, Hook?”

“Ah, yes,” Hook said in a lazy drawl. “The bar. Do allow me to thank you for that, Your Majesty. I so love a life spent in servitude to others. My ship in a bottle was a particularly pointed reminder that I did not understand what had agreed to when you offered me this...opportunity.”

Emma lost track somewhere around “Majesty”, but she did notice Regina’s lips curl very slightly upward--she was pleased with herself.

“But do consider, Majesty,” he pressed on, “whether you truly believe that you’ve kept the Dark One tame all of these years here in this realm, this Land Without Magic that was meant to keep him a prisoner. Do you truly believe that he has been here, all of this time, with no plans, no contingencies, and no means of acting upon them?” Regina’s expression shifted again, and Hook’s smile spread.

For a moment, no one moved or spoke, and then Regina repeated: “It’s not possible.”

Even Emma knew she said it in an attempt to convince herself.

“And yet,” Hook said, the words rolling off his tongue, “as you so wisely pointed out, I’ve managed to find you. I’ve taken steps.” He matched his actions to his words, pushing into Regina’s space, leaning over the desk and balancing his weight on the one hand.

“You think the maid is some kind of chess piece?” Regina scoffed.

“Do I look,” Hook said, “like I’m playing a game?”

“You’re still dedicated and resourceful, Hook,” Regina said grudgingly, “but Belle can’t help you kill Rumplestiltskin.”

“He’s Awake, Regina,” Hook countered. “And you’d have been stupid not to realize it the instant you saw what he did to Humbert.”

“Is that any way to address a queen?” Regina snapped, but Hook had obviously gotten to her. “Even a pirate should have better manners than that.”

“Oh,” Hook said, drawing out the syllable. “Perhaps I’m not crazy about your manners, either. Perhaps I’ve been grieving over them these past twenty-eight years, drinking rum behind my bar. You know what a persistent fellow I am, Regina. You know that twenty-eight years is barely a prologue for me. You of all people know what I am capable of, since you’ve seen fit to leave me with a daily reminder. But then--you’ve never been one for subtlety, have you?”

“Hook,” Regia said, her voice sharp with warning.

“Of course, Your Majesty, my manners,” Hook said. “I can see I’ve been remiss in not properly introducing--”

“Who is she?” Regina interrupted. “What is your purpose in bringing her here?”

“ _She_ is right here,” Emma said, glaring. “And she would love to know what the hell you two think is going on.” Because--’Dark One’? ‘Your Majesty’? ‘Captain’? Talking about Rumplestiltskin like that was an actual name for an actual person--this was so far down the rabbit hole that Emma was starting to wonder if a hookah-smoking caterpillar had dropped something into her rum.

Only--she hadn’t actually drank any of the rum, and she was making bad fairy tale puns in her head while Hook and Regina ignored her, as if she had served her purpose in this conversation, and she had been wrong because there was one thing Emma understood about all of this: leverage. She was part of Hook’s leverage, and as fury started to swirl up around here there was also the tiniest stab of disappointment and sadness, a faint wisp of _not again_.

“The child got away,” Hook said, and waited.

All trace of calm was gone from Regina and the rage had taken over. “Is this a joke, Captain? Something about Miss Swan’s ridiculous tattoo?”

Hook smirked again, the same cruel distortion of his lips, and shook his head. “I can’t count meself an expert, of course,” he said, “but I am a man of some considerable education and I’ve learned over the years of two things that are always true in a situation such as ours. Which one, Your Majesty, do you suppose is relevant here?”

That really got to her, Emma saw. Her entire body froze, her eyes widened and then shut completely for a minute until Regina visibly forced herself to open them again, and to face her interlocutor and his sickening, shit-eating grin.

“All curses can be broken,” Regina practically spat the words out at them.

And now, Emma thought, curses. Un-fucking-believable.

Regina and Hook, though, obviously both believed.

In curses.

“And yours, Regina, is weakening,” Hook said, pulling back from the desk and resuming his earlier stance, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around his belt. “Which brings us back to the subject of Humbert. Did you know he was hired and sent after me? Any guesses by whom?”

“No,” Regina said, her perfectly-painted lips pressed into a thin line.

“It would appear,” Hook continued, “that the Dark One has noticed that whatever you’ve taken has gone missing. ‘Tis a curious thing, no? For a man who, like me, should have no memory?” He paused. “Somehow, Regina, I don’t see that ending well for you.”

“Get. Out.” Regina gestured at the door with such force that Emma half-expected it to fly open by the force of her will alone. “Now. Both of you.”

“Willingly,” Hook intoned, accompanying it with another mocking bow. “Come, Swan, we’re done here.”

And they left.

\--

Emma wanted to stalk off in a huff but her present footwear made that impossible. Not to mention, Hook was definitely staring at her ass again, and there was no point in prolonging his opportunity. She squared her shoulders, hands on her hips, legs slightly apart. Her best glare was on her face and she was back in _do not fuck with me_ mode as Hook already had his arms up in a placating sort of gesture that Emma was absolutely, positively not in the mood for.

“Give me one good reason,” Emma said, “not to punch you in the face.” It ended up coming out as more of a snarl than a request but Emma was okay with that as long as it got her point across.

Hook easily caught the hand she hadn’t even consciously swung at him and gripped her wrist gently. “Considering I just did you a favor,” he said, his thumb rubbing absently across her skin, “that would be very bad form.” Hook didn’t go of her wrist; in fact, he tightened his grip and turned it so that it was facing up and the sleeve of her jacket had slipped up her arm until the flash of ink on skin was visible. “Now,” he said, “what is all of this palaver about a tattoo?”

Emma pulled her wrist back as if she had been stung, her hands going straight to her pockets. Her anger and frustration swirled around her, pulling her grief back to the surface. “No,” Emma said. “You do not get to screw with me right now. My partner is dead and whatever game you are playing has nothing to do with me. We are not a team and I am not helping you and you are going to tell me what the _fuck_ just happened back there.”

“Regina’s been spooked, love,” he said. “She’ll look to protect whatever it was she took, which means that you shall be able to retrieve it on behalf of your...client.” He said the word as if it left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Emma glared at him some more, this time because he was right. It was an old bail bonds trick for smoking out a perp--a classic, really, and Emma should have thought of it for herself.

“You seem very sure of that,” Emma said. “In fact, you seem to know her pretty well. What happened between the two of you back there?”

“Nothing,” Hook said smoothly. “I’ve told you, Swan, I did some work for the family once, long ago.”

“How do I know that you don’t have whatever it is Gold is looking for? How do I know you didn’t steal from him?”

“Oh, I’ve stolen from him,” Hook said easily, then raised his eyebrows at her expression. “Not my Milah, Swan--she left him and he killed her for it, and it would be my preference not to speak of her further.”

_Milah.  
_ _“Just like my Milah, when the crocodile took her from me.”_

Emma shook her head. “So what did you steal?”

“Nothing I’ve any intention of giving back,” Hook said with some finality. “And, as pertains to your particular mission, nothing he knows is missing.”

_Belle.  
Belle can’t help you kill Rumplestiltskin.”_

“Belle,” Emma said. “The maid.”

“Impressive,” he said. “But know this, Swan: I do not traffic in unwilling women.”

“So Captain Hook is a pirate after all, then?”

 _The look you get when you’ve been left alone,_ he’d said, only he’d had it too, and Emma had got the sense that under all of that innuendo, there was someone just trying to keep the world enough at bay to slay his own demons. She’d thought that, against all odds, she was beginning to get a handle on him. They’d shared something, some moment of understanding, in spite of his delusions and his revenge fantasies; Emma had seen it in the way that he had looked at his brother.

In the way he’d looked at her.

Then she had stood in a room with him, watching him face off against Regina, and it was like she was seeing an entirely different person--and the worst part was, she was pretty sure none of what he said had been a lie.

Cruses and Queens and Rumple-fucking-stiltskin in a “Land Without Magic” and he seemed to think all of that was true.

“What aren’t you telling me about you and ‘Her Majesty’, _Captain_?”

“Nothing,” Hook insisted. “That’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.”

“Not good enough,” Emma snapped. “I want answers, Hook. Real ones.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say,” Hook said, and suddenly she was back with the man she’d met in the bar and he was watching her like she was the only thing he ever wanted to look at.

Emma shifted her head, turning away from his gaze, and crossed her arms, feeling the leather there--battle mode, activated. She couldn’t stomp her foot--the shoes again--but she took a step back. It was deja-vu; they had already done this dance tonight, and she was no closer to knowing who’d killed Graham even if he was right about retrieving Gold’s property from Regina Mills.

“Who are you, really?”

“James Hook,” he said. “That’s my name. That’s been my name as long as I’ve been in this world, I swear to you.”

“James Hook,” Emma said, “is a character from a story book. So is Rumplestiltskin. Curses are not real, and there is no way that you have known Regina Mills for twenty-eight years unless you worked for her family when you were seven years old, and that is definitely too young to have enlisted in the Royal Navy even if you came by way of Neverland.”

Hook was quiet, and he hesitated before speaking. “I spent many years in Neverland,” he said.

“Did you get there through a rabbit hole?” Emma retorted, her temper flaring. “On your way to Wonderland?”

“Travel between realms does require a portal,” Hook said, still serious, then: “I’m going to tell you a story, Swan.”

Something about the soft, serious tone of his voice kept her still, waiting for whatever he might say next.

“Once upon a time, there was an enchanted forest, and its denizens included all of the fairy tale characters you think you know, until they found themselves in a place where all of their happy endings had been stolen.” He paused and said, “This world, Swan. The Land Without Magic. Time stopped, and everyone was trapped, and that was Regina’s victory; but magic always comes with a price--and all curses can be broken.”

_All curses can be broken._

“You can’t be serious,” Emma said.

“It was prophesied that the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, the product of True Love, would, on her twenty-eighth birthday--”

“No,” Emma interrupted. “Stop talking. And definitely stop pretending you know _anything_ about me or my life with your open-book garbage.”

“Alas, love,” he said, and he sounded resigned. “I know you better than you know yourself--I know who you are and where you came from. I know what became of your parents and why you grew up alone. Your parents’ entire kingdom was cursed. They sent you here to break it. And all of it is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold.”

“My parents?” Emma wanted to laugh, but the noise she made didn’t come close to that. “Their kingdom? A curse? Do you know what you sound like?”

Emma would later blame the sheer ridiculousness of the situation for why she didn’t notice the flashing lights headed in their direction.

“The tattoo is proof,” he said. “A buttercup. It was part of your father’s heraldry.”

“You’re telling me fairy tales,” Emma said.

“They’re not fairy tales,” Hook insisted. “They’re true. Every story you’ve read, some version of it has actually happened. You, Swan, have been here more than a year but it was on your birthday that something happened, am I correct? Your twenty-eighth birthday?”

The lights were closer, now, and they were attached to a sheriff’s cruiser.

“You kissed the Hunter, Swan,” he continued relentlessly, “and despite your protestations you must have felt something for him, some connection, or it would not have allowed the curse to weaken its hold on him.”

David Nolan was at the wheel, and he was pulling up alongside them. He put the car in park, lights still flashing, and opened his door. He called her name but made straight for Hook.

“James Hook?”

Hook nodded, wary, his eyes moving straight toward Emma. Emma just held up her hands, a mirror of his earlier gesture. _Not me_ , she mouthed.

“There’s been a complaint of harassment made against you,” Nolan said. “And you’re needed for questioning in the matter of Graham Humbert’s death.” David had gotten Hook’s hands behind his back, pulling out the cuffs.

“I’m devastated, love,” Hook said, and his voice was deadly calm as the first bracelet clinked. “Didn’t you even want to do the honors?” His eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, were like chips of ice as he stared at her.

“Call me ‘love’ one more time,” Emma said, “and you will lose the other hand.”

“Emma,” Hook said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice. “Did I tell you a lie?”

She ignored him, ignored David calling her name again and got back into her car, starting it and shifting and pulling away before Hook was fully situated in the backseat of the cruiser. She was going to move the car, park it again, and stake out Regina.

She was not going to spend the night thinking about James Hook and Graham Humbert and what Graham could possibly have gotten into with him. She was not going to think about Hook’s delusions and Graham’s death. She was not going to think about Neal or the look in Hook’s eyes when he had spoken to her and how, against all of her better instincts, Emma might actually have believed him.

Just because you believe something does not make it real, Emma reminded herself as she watched the cruiser drive away. She couldn’t take the chance that she was wrong about him--more importantly, she would not take the chance that she was right. Look out for yourself and you never get hurt , Emma reminded herself, and then did what she was best at: she ran.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hook spends the night in jail, and Emma spends the night dealing with her shit.  
> (It’s not a particularly pleasant way to spend the time, but what the hell–Emma Swan is not a believer. She is, however, a thief.)

Emma had a parking space that was legal, had sightlines into the Mills Organization building, and was far enough back from the entrance that the bright yellow car would not be too memorable. There was even a nearby streetlight that gave enough light to see without destroying her night vision.

It was almost enough to make a person believe in magic.

No cars went by as she sat and waited; no late-night pedestrians passing by in activities either savory or unsavory.

But she sat, and waited, because Hook was right and this was her best chance of making progress. Because she believed him when he said he hadn’t stolen Gold’s “valuable object”, no matter how much it went against her better judgement.

She believed him, about that and--

Her fingers traced over the soft, pebbled leather of Henry’s book as she waited, turning open to a page at random: a cartoonish drawing of a wedding, the bride in white and the groom in plate armor complete with sword belt. It was True Love and Happily Ever After, all of it Mary Margaret down to the core.

 _Once Upon a Time_.

Only the longer Emma stared at the illustration, the more the image began to seem like a photograph, like she could almost see their faces and the stained glass and the way the princess’s skirt fluttered not from fabric but from feathers dancing in the air.

The lights in the window flickered, pulling Emma’s focus fully back toward the building and there was a tall woman--blonde--she was dressed out of time in a voluminous brown skirt embroidered all over in roses and it looked like the curtain-clothing from _The Sound of Music_. She walked through the front door and vanished in a single flash of hard white light; a scream carried through the air and Emma was out of her car before the echo had faded.

That was when she saw the man in the animal coat, the one with the skin that seemed to glitter. In his hand was something small and white and he carried it as though it were both delicate and valuable.

“Hey!” Emma called out.

His expression, was she could see of it, registered surprise. The object vanished as he held his hands at right angles to each other and he giggled.

“Who are you?” Emma called, trying to walk forward and finding herself unable to do so.

“Not yet, dearie,” he said. “Not yet.”

He vanished; Emma felt a hand brush against her shoulder and jumped.

It wasn’t a hand--it was a silver hook where the prosthetic left hand of James Hook’s had been.

“Tick-tock, Swan,” he said.

The fingers of his right hand rubbed against her wrist and when Emma woke it was with her own hand wrapped around her tattoo and her head leaning against the steering wheel.

\--

The thing about stakeouts was that you needed actually to stay awake in order to execute one, so Emma gave up the game and turned the Bug back home when she saw the lights in Regina’s office were out. She parked the car in the first open spot within spitting distance of the of and found herself running inside, nearly banging the door into the wall when she came through. She called out an apology to Mary Margaret before remembering that it was well after midnight and only sort-of noticed that her roommate wasn’t even home as she started pulling drawers and cabinets open, looking for the one box that she never unpacked, never once in the seven different addresses. For most of her life, its contents had been in her backpack, squished up and neglected but never left behind, leaving just enough room for a toothbrush and a change of clothes and a few pairs of socks, maybe a hat if she was living someplace cold.

The blanket was soft, the knitted wool somehow still fluffy under her fingers in spite of its ignominious storage conditions. Emma pulled it out slowly, running her fingers across the smooth purple ribbon woven through, feeling the simple running stitch across the upper corner that spelled out her name. She sat cross-legged on the floor and draped the blanket over her legs and told herself it was just for a minute.

Emma’s life was full of nightmares. Sometimes, on her worst days, her entire existence actually felt like one; a waking hell from which there was no escape except for her own determination to keep going and to keep running.

But none of those nightmares had ever felt like _this_ , like something true and just on the edge of her consciousness, like a memory.

 _Milah.  
_ _The crocodile._

Emma could still see his face as he died in her dream, and she wasn’t sure if she meant Graham’s or Hook’s or both, so she sat on the floor with her blanket.

_Enjoy the quiet moment._

The blanket didn’t offer much in terms of real warmth when she sat on the floor, but Emma didn’t notice. She rubbed her hand across her wrist as though she could feel the motif inked there--remembered a time and a girl and a friend, her only friend, scribbling on that wrist and saying now we can both be special . Neal and how he had made her feel special; prison and the tattoo to remind herself that she was special without anyone’s help; the buttercup because once upon a time there had been a girl in a storybook that no one thought was special and she became a princess, the True Love to end all True Loves.

Henry’s book had fallen open and Emma slammed it shut almost exactly at the moment when the door banged open again, a slightly disheveled and fully distracted Mary Margaret walking in and nearly tripping over her.

“Oh!” Mary Margaret futtered around her, reaching a hand down toward the floor, apparently changing her mind, and then covering her mouth with it. “Emma! I didn’t expect you.” She paused. “On the floor, I mean.” Her hands were rubbing against each other anxiously as she played with the peridot ring on her middle finger.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma said, rubbing unshed tears from her eyes before her friend had enough focus to notice them. She really did not want a post-coital Mary Margaret going all mother-hen after the night she’d had. “Sorry. Got caught up in...a case.”

“Hmmm?” Mary Margaret said, still distracted. “Oh, that’s good.”

Emma looked at her friend, really looked at her: the woman was a wreck. Tear streaks on her face, the kind that came from ugly crying--and Sheriff Nolan had been the one to pull Hook into custody. So--

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” Mary Margaret said, dully. “Walking. By the water?”

“Is that a question?” Emma said.

“What?” And there was that famous Mary Margaret focus, looking at her as if she had just noticed the two of them were standing in their dining area in the middle of the night. “Emma, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Emma said.

“‘Nothing’ with you always means something,” Mary Margaret sighed, “because if it were nothing, you wouldn’t be sitting on our floor in the middle of the night.”

“We were talking about you,” Emma said, a little desperate.

“Yeah,” Mary Margaret said. “But talking about you is easier right now. Remember how you told me to stay away from David and I didn’t?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, pushing herself upright and going for the Scotch. Mary Margaret didn’t drink that often, but they kept a bottle of it in the same cupboard where Emma had hidden her blanket. Mary Margaret bent over and picked the book up off the floor.

“Where did you find this?” she asked. “Did Henry Mills give this to you?”

“What?” Emma said, startled. “Why?” She poured herself a shot and then another one for her friend, handing it over.

“I lent it to him,” Mary Margaret said wistfully. “It used to be my favorite book, you know.”

Emma took her drink and poured another. “Fairy tales?” Emma laughed, and it was harsh--slightly hysterical, even. “Seems about right for you.” She finished the second shot and put the glass down.

“No,” Mary Margaret said, running her fingers across the gilded lettering. “It was more than that. It was hope. Like--believing in even the possibility of a happy ending.”

“Hope,” Emma repeated dubiously.

“And belief,” Mary Margaret said. “It’s a very powerful thing, you know.”

“Whatever,” Emma said, summoning a smile for her friend. She walked toward the ladder to her loft before turning back in an attempt to offer Mary Margaret some kind of reassurance, but Mary Margaret was no longer there. Or maybe she was, only her hair--long now instead of the short pixie cut she typically favored--her hair piled on her head, her waist confined in a dress with a white silk corseted bodice.

The skirt had feathers.

“Mary Margaret?” Emma said.

“Yes?” The woman in white answered her.

“Good night,” Emma said.

\--

Sleep was a challenge and beginning daylight was making the sky go grey; Emma was already dressed and out the door by the time five o’clock came and went. She had gone to bed full of whiskey and frustration and fear, chasing a vision of a woman in white through the pages of the storybook she’d gone downstairs for as soon as she’d heard her roommate’s sobbing go quiet and still.

She hadn’t slept.

The fairy tales were--unexpected. To begin with, they were not in any sort of chronological order, meandering through a series of origin stories and follow-ups seemingly based on whatever interested the author most at that particular moment; an increasingly hard-to-follow series of circumlocutions as if they had been paid by the plot twist to churn out the craziest content they could think of. Snow White was a bandit; Prince Charming a shepherd; Red Riding Hood was the Big Bad Wolf and True Love’s Kiss could conquer anything.

Including The Dark Curse, product of the darkest magic and the most malign intent, unleashed upon the world by an Evil Queen manipulated by a man known as the Dark One, and then Snow White and Prince Charming had wrapped their newborn daughter in a hand-knitted blanket trimmed with purple ribbon and hoped that someday, she would find them.

 _All of it_ , he’d said, _is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold_.

That was when Emma left a note for her friend, promising breakfast, and went back to The Rabbit Hole.

The rear entrance was locked but the office wasn’t, and anyway Emma had come prepared for both, the tension wrench going straight in and exactly the right amount of pressure on the pins popping the back door open in a matter of seconds. The room was exactly as they had left it, even down to Emma’s unfinished tumbler of rum sitting on the far side of Hook’s desk. This time, though, Emma sat on his side, in his chair, bending to examine the drawers.

In the third drawer down she found the locked box. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lock on this offered more of a challenge than the back door had done, but it was still open in less than a minute, its contents spread across the desk for Emma’s examination. Emma’s hands fidgeted with the smallest treasure pulled from the trove--a ring on a chain--as she contemplated the curved, silver metal that would not have looked out of place in the collection on the wall in the main bar. The hook was nestled in with a scrap of worn leather embossed with a sigil, a foreign crest stamped atop the name ‘JONES’; what stopped Emma in her tracks was the pen-and-ink drawing of a woman and another of a boy, both with creases so sharply worn from folding and unfolding that she was almost surprised the paper--the _parchment_ \--didn’t fall apart in her hands.

The boy could almost have been a twin for Henry Mills.

But Henry didn’t have a twin--that much, at least, Emma knew for sure. She’d only given birth the once.

The ring went around her neck before Emma could ask herself why.

The parchment went into her pocket.

Everything else went back into the lockbox and then back into the drawer.

 _Everything you think you believe is wrong,_ he’d said.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

\--

Granny’s at seven in the morning was another challenge. Not just because the neighborhood’s best coffee shop and diner would naturally be bustling during the morning rush but because Emma’s head was still pounding from the Scotch. Almost before she sat down, Granny had sent Ruby over with a cup of steaming hot chocolate, whipped cream on top and a cinnamon stick instead of a spoon to stir it. Ruby pulled a face at being dragged back into her old waitressing gig, then gave Emma a wink and sat down, brandishing a bear claw.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to remember why Ruby had quit working at her grandmother’s diner instead of imagining a werewolf serving a breakfast pastry. Something about a row between Granny and Ruby that ended up with Ruby at the bus stop, threatening to leave town, and Emma finding her and mentioning that she and Graham could use the extra help.

“You look like shit,” Ruby commented, taking a bit of an apple that matched her lipstick.

“Are you sure Granny didn’t just fire your ass?” Emma retorted. “Because that is now how you speak to paying customers.”

Ruby laughed. “I’m a people person,” she said. “One that you pay to speak to _your_ customers.”

“Good point,” Emma said, offering a small smile. “How long did you work here, anyway?”

“As long as I can remember,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes. “Too long, that’s for sure.”

_As long as I can remember._

“I’m sorry my heart attack interfered with your plans to sleep your way down the eastern seaboard,” Granny said, coming up behind them. “Eat your bear claw or I won’t save you one next time.” That last was directed at Emma, who hastened to comply.

Ruby laughed. “What’s up with you this morning, Em? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bear claw last long enough for you to put it on a plate before.”

Emma shrugged. “It was a long night,” she said, because that was easier than saying she’d stayed up too late reading fairy tales and drinking, or explaining that she’d already committed a felony _and_ been to the office before seven. She’d sat at Graham’s desk, with his things--added another reminder to her collection when she’d pulled the laces from his work boots and tied them around her wrist to cover her tattoo. Hook’s ring bumped up against the swan pendant around her neck that might as well have been an albatross for how much it had weighed her down in the years since Neal had stolen it for her and then bequeathed it to her, a parting gift she’d received in prison as she served the sentence he’d set her up to take.

It came in the mail the same day she’d taken the pregnancy test.

Emma Swan did not get emotional about men and she carried the reasons--the _reminders_ \--why everywhere she went.

 _It’s always nice to leave an impression_.

The ring was leaving an impression in her skin from where she’d wrapped her hand around it, Emma realized as she tried to focus on what Ruby was saying to her, and then the bell over the entrance rang and Mary Margaret came in, looking nervously around her before sliding into their booth. Emma ordered her a tea by gesturing for Ruby to go get it, which got her another fake snarl before Mary Margaret said, in a voice barely above a whisper: “I broke up with David.”

“Ah,” Emma said. She leaned in closer, wanting to offer comfort but not totally sure how to do it. She reached her hand out to her roommate’s in an unfamiliar gesture, then let it fall to the table when her eye caught the peridot ring Mary Margaret wore on her third finger.

_"I’m not the jewelry type," said Snow White._  
_"I can tell," said the prince."_

“Kathryn,” Mary Margaret said, “his wife, I mean, she got into law school.” She paused. “In Boston.”

_And it was then, when he saw his mother’s ring on her finger, that he knew in his heart there was no other woman he would ever love._

Emma pulled at the ring on the chain around her neck.

 _Consider it a reminder_.

“So David is moving with her?”

Ruby laughed. “David, outside of Storybrooke? I’m not sure if he would survive.”

“No,” Mary Margaret said, on the verge of tears. “We talked about it--we agreed--to take the opportunity to start over from a real place. He was going to tell her the truth. We were going to be honest.”

Emma did not fail to notice the repeated use of the past tense.

“He didn’t tell her,” Emma said, not needing to ask. “But she found out, didn’t she?”

“While you were out last night on your case I was with David,” Mary Margaret said. “And then his wife called looking for him. She thought he was on duty at the station but he didn’t answer there so she--” Mary Margaret was wiping away tears. “He was supposed to tell her. He told me that he did.”

“That would have been the honorable thing to do,” Emma muttered.

“And I realized,” Mary Margaret said, “that what we have, it isn’t love. It’s something else, something destructive. We shouldn’t be together. It’s like we’re cursed.”

 _"Show me you feel the same, and we can be together forever_."  
_“They had their happy endings stolen from them_ ,” Hook had said.

Ruby came back with the tea and sat down, looking between Emma and Mary Margaret before enveloping Mary Margaret in a hug.

“I always thought,” Mary Margaret said, “that if two people were meant to be together, they find a way. They--find each other, no matter what. I really believed that.”

 _“If you need anything--”  
_ _“You’ll find me?” Snow said, looking at him thoughtfully.  
_ _"Always,” Charming confirmed.  
_ _“I almost believe that.”_

Emma shook her head, trying to wake herself up, trying not to picture the story she’d read the night before, trying not to see the woman in white and a red-cloaked werewolf where her friends were sitting. She took a sip of her cocoa and looked at the clock: 7:15.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Ruby was saying, an arm still wrapped around Mary Margaret’s shoulder as the bell over the door rang again and Sheriff David Nolan walked in.

“You made a mistake with David,” Emma said. “It happens. Hang in there. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

“Thank you,” Mary Margaret said softly, wiping under her eyes, though her mascara was already a lost cause.

So much for True Love.

But Emma still had a job to do, even if she wasn’t completely sure what it was any more. She finished her cocoa and got up, a quick “see you at the office” to Ruby and a hand on the shoulder, which seemed like the right thing to do, for Mary Margaret. She walked toward David and resisted the urge to hit him when she got in front of him and asked, “What happened with Hook last night?”

David’s head moved but he wasn’t looking at her. He was almost looking through her as he said, “I’m looking,” which didn’t seem like an answer to her question.

“What the fuck, Nolan? You really want to dick around right now?” Emma gestured impatiently at the sobbing woman behind both of them.

“I’m looking,” he repeated, and it still wasn’t an answer.

“Whatever,” Emma muttered, moving toward the way out. David Nolan looked like a man possessed.

Or cursed.

 _Fuck literally all of that_ , Emma thought as the door closed behind her, nearly walking into someone on the sidewalk. She sidestepped him at the last minute, turning behind her just to double-check, and he was staring at her. The man was tall, with messy hair and wide eyes, something frantic in his gaze. He wore a cravat and a top coat as if that was a thing people did, and turned away when she met his eyes, walking quickly in the other direction.

Emma buried her hands in her pockets, twisting her fingers in the fabric of the pocket bags, and walked to the sheriff’s station.

\--

She should have been expecting to find him already gone, if Nolan was out and about getting coffee, but finding the cell empty was still something of a shock. Judging by the charge sheet David had left on his desk--without locking the door, making it easy to snoop--Hook had been bailed out by a woman named Cora Hart. David had left no other notes or thoughts, at least none that Emma could see, so she walked back to the door and came face-to-face with Regina Mills, who was walking in and looking, as usual, angry.

“Seriously?”

“I should be the one asking you that,” Regina said, apparently exasperated in addition to angry. “What game are you playing at, Miss Swan?”

“I could say the same to you,” Emma retorted. “It was you, wasn’t it, who phoned the Sheriff last night?”

Regina did not condescend to answer. “The way the two of you were making eyes at each other,” Regina said with a sneer, “constituted a crime.”

“We do not,” Emma objected, “‘make eyes’.” Emma realized her mistake only when Regina snorted--it felt like an admission, of sorts, and definitely one that Regina could not be trusted with.

“I’ve come to see to him, at any rate,” Regina said expectantly. “What have you done with him?”

Emma gestured at the empty cell with a flourish, suppressing the urge to make a mocking little bow. “He’s gone,” she said. “Bailed out this morning by Cora Hart.”

There was a beat of silence and then Regina’s face went completely white, as if all of the blood had drained from her face at once--except for her lips, which remained so red they looked bloodstained.

“Who is she, Regina?”

“It’s not possible,” Regina whispered.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” Emma said. “It never seems to be true.”

Regina’s perfectly painted lips formed a moue. “She’s my mother,” Regina admitted.

“I thought your mother was dead,” Emma said.

“So did I,” Regina said.

\--

Watching Henry Mills on the playground was like staring into the past.

A group of kids crowded around the swingset; another took turns using a slide; and Henry sat, resplendent in his solitude, in the tower of a play structure.

“He calls it his castle,” Mary Margaret explained when Emma had shown up at the school looking for Henry. “That’s where he spends most of his time.”

Emma had always been, at best, at the fringes of childhood socializing. More often, she found herself alone and apart, considered temporary--too aloof, too prickly, too much effort to be worth it.

“You left this in my office,” Emma said, coming up behind him and settling herself next to him. The book she left on the ground in between them.

“Oh,” Henry says, looking sheepish. “Yeah, thanks...Emma.”

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Emma said.

His expression brightened. “You read it?” he asked, excited. “You know?”

“Did I read what?” she said. “Do I know what?”

“The story about you,” Henry tapped the book. “That you’re the Savior.”

“Oh, kid,” Emma said. “You’ve got problems.” Then: “What is it, anyway?”

Henry considered her. “I’m not sure you’re ready, Emma,” he said seriously.

“I’m not ready for fairy tales?”

“They’re not fairy tales,” he said with complete sincerity. “They’re true. Every story in this book actually happened.”

 _Every story you’ve read,_ Hook had said _, some version of it has actually happened._

“I’ve kind of had enough of the book crap,” Emma said, then winced. “Sorry, I guess I should watch my language or something. But, yeah, I read some of the stories in your book.”

Henry was quiet for a minute, waiting.

“What I meant,” Emma said, “was that I’m your--your birth mother.”

That was the first time she said it out loud.

“I know,” Henry said.

She had never even let herself hold him.

“It’s okay, Emma,” Henry said, his eyes as wide as saucers and his voice gentle and older than his years. “I know why you gave me away. You wanted to give me my best chance.”

“How do you know that?” Emma asked.

“Because,” he said, “it’s the same reason Snow White gave you away.”

_Your parents’ entire kingdom was cursed. They sent you here to break it._

“What matters is that you’re here now,” Henry said happily. “You’re going to bring back the happy endings. It says so in the book.”

_A place where all of their happy endings had been stolen._

“Did Hook tell you that?”

“Hook?” Henry repeated. “Like, Captain Hook?”

“No,” Emma said, shaking her head. “No, like Hook from The Rabbit Hole.”

Henry was nodding. “Yeah, Liam’s brother. Hook. _Captain_ _Hook_ , Emma. He’s in the book, too.”

“Listen to me: I’m not in any book, I’m a real person. I’m no savior,” she said. “But you’re right about one thing--I wanted you to have your best chance, and it wasn’t with me.”

“But it could be,” Henry said quietly. “You don’t know what it’s like here. With her. It’s not--it really sucks, Emma.”

Emma was surprised to hear that kind of language from a ten-year-old and she wanted to grab him, to soothe him. She didn’t know if she was allowed to, though, so she rubbed her hand against his shoulder and quickly pulled it away.

 _“You could be,”_ Hook had said.

She couldn’t do this.

She was not parent material.

How could she be a parent when she never was one? When she never had one?

“Believe me, kid,” Emma said, “I know what ‘sucking’ is. I was left on the side of a freeway--my parents didn’t even bother to drive me to a hospital. But I’m sure, in her way, your mom is trying her best.”

“Emma,” Henry said, “you’ve met her. You’ve seen her. Do you really believe that?”

She didn’t--she really didn’t. But she couldn’t say that to a ten-year-old kid who wasn’t legally hers.

“I want to, kid,” Emma said.

“You know she’s the Evil Queen,” Henry said. “She’s the one who made it so your parents had to send you away--they didn’t leave you on the side of the freeway. That’s just where you came through.”

“What?”

“When you went through the wardrobe,” Henry said, “your parents were just trying to save you from the curse--so you could find them, and break it.”

 _“You found me,” Snow said.  
_ _“Did you ever doubt that I would?”_

“Sure they were, kid,” Emma said. “So, you spend a lot of time with Hook?”

“Liam’s my friend,” he said, shrugging. “His brother is always really nice to me.”

“And you told him about your storybook? That’s why you think he’s Captain Hook?”

Henry looked shocked. “Of course not, Emma,” he said. “They don’t _know_ they’re cursed. That’s the whole point.”

But Hook--he _knew_.

“And you think I’m here to break this curse? That’s why you stole Mary Margaret’s credit card to find me? Why you left the book in my office?”

“Yeah,” he said with certainty. “Because you’re the product of True Love. That’s what makes you the Savior.”

 _“True Love_ ,” he’d said. _“That’s the most powerful magic of all, or so they say_.” He’d said that, as if magic were real and it was just that simple, and then he’d looked at her with the kind of look you get in your eyes when you’ve been left alone. The kind of look a man might have after growing up under an indenture and losing the brother who had protected him--the kind of look he might have after watching the woman he loved die while he was helpless to stop it--the kind of look that might drive a man to chase his vengeance through worlds and time and finally give himself over to a curse in the hope of finally finding his revenge.

“You really believe,” Emma said, “that everyone in this world is a fairy tale character?”

 _Everything you think you believe is wrong_.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

“No,” Henry said.

Emma smiled, relieved.

“Just the ones in this part of town, in Storybrooke,” he said. “Time’s been frozen, only, I think it started moving again when you got here.”

“And no one noticed that time just, like, didn’t move?”

“They don’t know,” Henry insisted. “It’s a haze to them, ask anyone _anything_ about their pasts.”

 _“As long as I can remember,”_ Ruby said.  
_"As long as I can remember,”_ Hook said. _  
__He’s older than he looks._

“So let me get this straight,” Emma said. “For decades, people have been wandering around, not aging, with screwed-up memories, stuck in a curse?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Henry said. “I knew you’d get it--that’s why we need you. You’re the only one who can stop my mom.”

“Because I’m the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming,” Emma said.

“Yes,” Henry said. “But my mom doesn’t know that--we have the advantage.”

 _“The child got away,”_ Hook had said.

“Riiiight,” Emma said, drawing out the word. “And who--who do you think Snow White is, exactly?”

“Miss Blanchard,” Henry said. “Definitely. And I’m pretty sure that Sheriff Nolan is Prince Charming.”

 _“It’s like we’re cursed,”_ Mary Margaret had said.

“Oh, kid,” Emma said again.

“I have a name, you know,” he said. “It’s Henry.”

“Yeah,” Emma whispered.

Henry put his hand on her arm. “I know you like me, Emma. And I know the hero never believes at first. If they did, it wouldn’t be a very good story.” He held the book out to her, barely balancing it in both hands.

Emma took the book.

She was _not_ a believer.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma confronts Hook--Killian Jones--just, whatever the fuck his name is.  
> Twice. 
> 
> Neither of those is what Hook might call a ‘pleasant conversation’--and Henry was right: Emma is not ready for the answers she gets.
> 
> She’s also not ready for the way her breath hitches and the world contracts when she stands in Hook’s office, his hand on her wrist and his eyes blazing as he calls her ‘princess’ like that is a curse in itself.

Emma banged on the door of The Rabbit Hole. The front door this time; no lock picks necessary, though she reconsidered this approach when it took awhile for the door to open. She was greeted by a petite blonde with a messy topknot and a pinned-on name tag (“Tink”) who looked singularly unimpressed when Emma asked to see Hook.

“He warned us you might be coming by,” Tink said. “We’re not meant to let you in.”

“Fine,” Emma sighed. “Then I’m here for, like, pixie dust or whatever.”

“I’m fresh out,” Tink deadpanned, rolling her eyes as Emma pushed through. “And I don’t think he especially wants to see you.”

In the daylight, the vintage air lent by the Edison bulbs was absent, leaving only the sense of grime. A man--by the looks of him, Hook’s companion from the alley the night of Graham’s murder--was stocking shelves and stacking glasses while shouting orders at a small, ratty-looking man in a red cap. The singer worked on some equipment on the small stage, humming to herself, and Emma tried not to listen as the feeling of subtle unease rolled through her in discordant harmony with the song.

Lacey, she of the stilettos and the t-shirt with the cascading auburn hair, was nowhere to be seen.

 _She’s new_.  
_The maid won’t help you kill Rumplestiltskin._

Emma shook her head and wended her way toward the office, past the restroom and the entrance to the small kitchen along the route she had taken the night before--how had it been only the night before?--following the faint sound of conversation she could hear leaking into the hallway.

“--matters grew complicated.” Hook’s voice stopped Emma in her tracks, and she paused by the door of the restroom so that she could eavesdrop. “Honestly, the details of the affair are a bit of a bore.”

“I doubt that,” a woman’s voice said. “I would imagine running off with the Swan girl--the Savior, Hook--and alerting my daughter would be anything but a bore. And while I would love to know why you thought either of those things was a good idea, you know that’s an unacceptable betrayal.”

“Come off it,” Hook snapped. “Our agreement--”

“I’ve crossed through too many worlds to be brought up short on the brink of success,” the woman cut him off. “I don’t have time for whatever game you think you’re playing.”

“You think that I don’t comprehend what the stakes are here?”

“Your actions,” the woman said, “would certainly suggest otherwise.”

“Rest assured, it won’t happen again.”

“No,” the woman agreed. “It won’t. You chose her. Now you can face the consequences of that decision.”

Emma ducked into the restroom and only just got the door shut as she heard someone, presumably Cora Hart, walk by. She counted ten and added another ten just to make sure before stepping back into the hallway and into Hook’s office.

His shirt, the same one from last night, was wrinkled and untucked, though he had discarded his waistcoat and the sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing the brace on his left wrist and a flash of ink that must have been a tattoo. His hair had gone from artfully mussed to full-on mess and he needed to trim his beard back. Hook was pouring himself a drink--the rum bottle again--and drank it off quickly before pouring another.

He saw Emma as he was lifting the glass for round two; Emma watched his expression darken into something twisted and hurt. He put the glass down, turned, bent, and pulled out another glass, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her as he poured a third shot into the clean glass and pushed it toward her.

“I generally prefer not to drink my breakfast,” Emma said, but she took the few steps forward to the desk anyway.

“Drink with me, Swan,” Hook said, his eyes flashing blue murder, “or get the hell out.” His mouth twitched upward in a harsh facsimile of his real smile. “I’m recovering from a trauma, don’t you know. In all of the times I’ve been condemned to the brig, I’ve never before been force-fed bologna.”

“You do look like shit,” Emma said, raising her glass in a toast.

“Whereas you, darling,” Hook said, “look stunning.” He drank the rum and Emma flinched, glad the glass in her hands kept her from reaching self-consciously for her flattened curls or rubbing under her eye for stray liner. The tone of his voice was deadly and Emma had never before heard an endearment sound so much like an epithet. Emma moved the glass to her lips, grateful for the burn of the liquor down her throat.

Grateful for his anger and grateful for the proof that she had been treating their acquaintance--connection--like more than it was.

She concentrated on the burn and ignored her awareness of the very fact that his anger, and his hurt, was proof that their connection was--had been--real.

“It was a mistake,” Emma said, but he didn’t let her say anything else.

“Is that what you want to call it?” He snorted, and reached for the rum bottle. Again.

“Well, I tried to call it ‘Al’,” Emma said, starting to feel her temper rise. “But it would only answer to ‘mistake’.”

Emma was trying to figure out what had happened to Graham.

Nothing else.

She was _not_ a believer. She was not a parent. She was not interested in being part of something.

There was no future here; not a happy one, at any rate.

 _Consider it a reminder_.

Her hand went involuntarily to the chain around her neck. “You would have done the same,” she said, and knew it was a lie.

_Look out for yourself and never get hurt._

“Actually, princess,” he said, his eyes following her hand, “I believe in good form. I had no need to bring you there at all, much less hurt my own cause to do so.”

_Consider it a reminder._

“Fuck you, Jones,” Emma said, and cursed herself when his eyes flickered.

“‘Killian’ will do,” he said. “I see that you had a busy night after leaving me to the tender mercies of your constabulary.”

“I came to apologize,” Emma said sharply, “and to give you this.” She started to pull at the chain around her neck, but at the stricken look that flashed across his face, put her glass on the desk and lifted it with both hands, the ring cradled in her palm.

“Well done, Swan,” Hook said. “Wouldn’t you make one hell of a pirate?” His voice was now completely emotionless, which was somehow worse than the undercurrent of malice that had been there a moment ago. “Perhaps you’re the one who should have been locked up.”

Emma dropped the ring into his outstretched hand. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It was my brother’s,” he said, his voice still flat; he didn’t even bat an eyelash at her confession. “I’ve had it for--a very long time.” His fingers curled around the tarnished silver. “I think it might be the reason I’m still alive, this reminder that I once had a family.”

Emma felt the blood draining from her face and took another sip of the rum to cover it up.

“What else did you find, _princess_?” The word was practically a snarl. “My elder brother, Liam? My dead lover, Milah? The crusade for vengeance that carried me for nearly three hundred years?”

“Don’t call me that,” Emma said.

“Can’t handle it, Swan?” That verbal tic of his was back in full force as he landed hard on the ‘t’. “But it’s true, princess, all of it. For more years than you can imagine, I offered a black heart or an ugly death to everyone that I met, and I did it with a song in my heart--without conscience, and without remorse, because I had been done wrong.”

“Like Cora Mills?” Emma said. “Or is it Cora Hart? Either way, she seems to be in pretty good shape for a dead woman.”

“A busy night, indeed,” he murmured.

“You don’t exactly strike me as the musical type,” Emma said.

“Think, Swan,” he said. “You’ve obviously figured some things out. Think about every evil act attributed to me, every sin that has been laid at my door.” His voice was quietly terrifying, but Emma was not going to back down. “Recite to yourself my catalogue of cruelties and consider if you really want to provoke me right now.”

Emma walked to the desk and reached for the rum bottle.

He stopped her, his right hand wrapped around her wrist. The metal of the ring pressed into her and she shivered.

“I came here by choice, Swan. I am one of the few who did, though I was played just as surely as any of the poor sods who were brought here against their will. Only I was given a gift: To wake up, for twenty-eight years, and not dread the day before it began. To live the same day, over and over, and to welcome it, because I felt like someone alive.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. And she was not prepared for how quickly Hook--Jones--closed the gap between them.

“You’re a liar,” he said.

“Captain Hook is calling me a liar,” Emma said, feeling the color rising again in her cheeks. “What happened to ‘the mystique is part of my charm’?”

“No, princess,” he said. “Killian Jones is calling you a liar.” He took another step forward, further crowding her personal space.

And he had not let go of her wrist.

“Vengeance is a siren’s song as much as any other,” he said, and Emma could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin. “But my constant pursuit of revenge--for the death of the crocodile--left my life empty. That’s the thing about revenge, you see: it’s an end, not a beginning.”

Emma looked into his eyes and saw all of the despair of a lost little boy who had never mattered, and who believed he never would. She did not hold his gaze. She already had a mirror.

“Your arrival in our little corner of the world was enough to trigger the protection spell I had traveled under; the arrival of the Savior, come to break the curse, and suddenly I remembered all that had come before. I had been living in a dream powered by magical nonsense. I’d had a life, and friends, and lovers, and none of it was real.”

“And a brother,” Emma murmured, and the shock of him dropping her wrist was almost worse than his grip on it had been.

“Do not misunderstand me, princess,” he said. “Your arrival reminded me of my purpose, but I cared not one whit whether this curse ever broke. And then--”

He tilted his head, angling it down and toward her. “You,” he said. He was so close, Emma could almost grab his collar and make the space between them nonexistent. His eyes flashed as he said: “Why didn’t you come for me last night? Why did you turn on me?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t believe in any of this. I just need to find out what happened.”

“Liar,” he breathed, his lips just over hers. “I should thank you, Swan, for reminding me what I’m all about. And if you want to pretend that all of this isn’t happening, that’s fine. I don’t dance, anyway.”

 _Liar_ , Emma thought, watching him take one step backward and then another. He settled his weight on the desk, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded across his chest, the chain dangling against the fabric of his shirt.

“Now,” Hook said, his expression flipping to one of complete disinterest. “If you’re going to apologize, don’t be afraid to, you know, really get into it.”

“Fuck you, Jones,” she said again.

“Alas, princess,” he said, every syllable dripping with disdain and disappointment, “the time for that is done. Just as I have done--with you.”

\--

Only after she had left The Rabbit Hole did Emma realize she still had the folded parchment in her back pocket.

\--

“Miss Swan,” Mr. Gold greeted her, the small but satisfied smile on his face immediately making Emma uncomfortable. “I wanted to thank you for a job well-done.”

“Mr. Gold,” Emma said, confused, “I--”

Then Emma saw it--the small object on the desk in his office: white, delicate-looking--if the chip in it was anything to judge by. A teacup.

A _freaking_ teacup.

“I must say I was quite impressed by your efforts at tracking, Miss Swan, once you finally put your mind to it. But then again, Humbert has always been known for his ability to, shall we say, hunt down those who wish to remain hidden.”

_“Happy hunting, dearie.”  
The Hunter. “  
You kissed the Hunter, Swan.”_

“How was my old friend, I wonder? Surprised to see you?”

“I was under the impression that you and he were not friends,” Emma said cautiously.

“I don’t believe he is capable of having friends,” Gold said simply, “but then again, neither am I. ‘Enemies’ might be a better term, if one were being dramatic.” He giggled, and the sound of it was heavy in the air. “Mortal enemies, one might say.”

“Thank goodness we’re not being dramatic.”

“As you can see,” Gold continued, “I have retrieved my property thanks to your efforts and so there is only the matter of payment left between us.” He smiled. “For now.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. “I trust this will be sufficient for your time.”

Hating herself, Emma took it.

Gold folded his hands on top of his desk and looked at her, still smiling.

Emma opened her mouth to speak and then changed her mind, closing it.

_The man in the animal coat, the one with the skin that seemed to glitter. In his hand was something small and white and he carried it as though it were both delicate and valuable._

“Crocodile,” Emma whispered.

The smile faltered--just for a moment. “Ah,” he said, as if that was an answer to a question.

_“He’s Awake, Regina. And you’d have been stupid not to realize it the instant you saw what he did to Humbert.”_

“You did it,” Emma said. “It was you. You killed Graham.”

Gold tilted his head. “Miss Swan,” he said carefully. “I understand that the loss of your partner must have been difficult for you. But I was given to understand that Mr. Humbert endured some type of physical attack. And I, well--” he paused. “I prefer small weapons: the needle, the pen, the fine points of a deal.”

It sounded so reasonable.

But it was not a denial.

 _All of it is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold_.

“Why are you doing this?” Emma asked. “Why did you do this, when you knew--you knew Regina had your ‘precious object.’ You wanted me to go after Hook. Everything I’ve done since Graham died is exactly what you wanted me to do.”

“Oooooh,” he smirked. “Such hostility.” His hand toyed absently with the cane propped up against his desk. “And yet you saw with your own eyes the first time in this world I’d ever laid eyes on Regina Mills. Your finding James Hook was the first time I’d ever heard the name.”

“You created the curse, didn’t you? You set all of this into motion?”

“Really, Miss Swan,” Gold said. “You’re quite emotional, dearie, but this isn’t over yet.”

_“Not yet, dearie. Not yet.”_

“I couldn’t in my wildest dreams understand what notions have gotten into your head,” he said. “But it sounds like something out of a book of fairytales. Perhaps you would be better off discussing it with young Master Mills.”

The gold tooth glinted as he said it.

Emma shifted her weight, uncomfortable in the chair, and the piece of folded parchment fluttered to the floor. Gold, moving more quickly than she would have imagined, bent over to pick it up, smoothing it open as he did so.

“Ah,” he said again, though it was a pained sound this time. “Now where did you get this?”

“Seeing as our business is concluded,” Emma said, holding her hand out, “I don’t see how that is any of yours.”

Tucking the drawing back into her pocket, she turned and left the room.

\--

Henry was sitting in the small courtyard outside the diner as Emma walked by, a quiet Liam Jones-- _Hook_ \--sitting next to him and sipping on a cup of tea. Emma tried again to give him his book back, only--

 _The tattoo is just proof_.

“Oh, yeah,” Henry said when she asked him, flipping happily through the pages until he got to an illustration of a tall blonde man brandishing a sword and shield, the sigil rendered in broad, clean strokes.

A lion rampant.

On a field of buttercups.

“Thats Prince Charming’s sign,” Henry explained. “Why do you ask?”

Emma pulled her sleeve down so that it covered her wrist and “No reason,” she lied.

Liam watched her as she did it, a mixture of curiosity and hostility on his face, until she tried to meet his eyes. Then his face was pleasantly bland in a mask that he unquestionably had learned from his brother.

Now Emma’s head rested on her crossed arms at the counter at Granny’s, her hot chocolate getting cold and her grilled cheese untouched on the plate as her fingers rubbed across the shoelaces tied around her wrist and covering the tattoo.

_“It’s part of your father’s heraldry.”_

With the yelling and the tension of it all she hadn’t even gotten to ask Jones--Hook--why the _fuck_ he had a picture of her son in his lockbox.

 _Like something out of a book of fairytales_.

And Gold--what did he know about Henry?

What if--

If Hook--If Henry--

If they were telling the truth, then she had to come up with a way to get Henry out of this place.

 _“You know my mom’s the Evil Queen_.”

Emma sat up, nearly knocking the plate over. Just--

“Emma!” David’s tone was frantic, his voice raised to get her attention.

“So you’re talking to me now?” Emma said.

“I need to find Snow,” he said. “She’s missing, but I will find her. I will _always_ find her.” He looked at her seriously. “Will you aid me?”

“I thought your wife’s name was Kathryn,” Emma said, “but color me not at all surprised that you had more than one side-piece.”

David looked affronted. “Kathryn?” he asked. “I know of no one named Kathryn. Snow White is my True Love. I’ve known it ever since--”

“You first saw your mother’s ring on her finger?” Emma asked.

 _True Love.  
"I’m pretty sure that Sheriff Nolan is Prince Charming._”

“Indeed,” he said. “That was when I knew I would never love another woman.”

“Very cute, Charming,” she said.

“I have a name, you know,” he said, but something about it made him smile. “You’re so much like her.”

Emma tried to get up and leave but his hand wrapped around her bicep. She grabbed his wrist and found not a hand, but the silver metal of a hook. The hook was where his left hand should have been and Emma looked up, already knowing what--who--she would see.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” Hook said, “but we make quite the team, Emma.”

“Emma!”

Someone was shaking her shoulder.

“Emma!”

She opened her eyes; it was David.

“Emma,” he said, “have you seen--”

She was still sitting at the counter at Granny’s--her hot chocolate was ice cold now and her grilled cheese congealed into something inedible. Emma shook her head and tried to orient herself.

“Mary Margaret,” Emma said slowly. “You’re looking for Mary Margaret.”

“Yes,” David said. “I haven’t seen her since--well, I think something might be wrong.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Emma said, signalling to Granny for a cup of coffee and adding, “in a to-go cup, please.” She turned back to David and said: “You broke her heart, David, what else do you need from her?”

“I can’t find her anywhere,” David said, his eyes pleading.

Granny came back over with the coffee and Emma stood up to take it.

“Listen, you need to leave her alone,” Emma said. “You fucked up, Nolan, and--”

“Can you please just--” he took a deep breath, running his hand over his hair. “Can you look for her? Please?”

Emma paused, her jacket halfway on, and looked at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Whatever.” She waved at him dismissively and went through the door, the bell above announcing her departure.

She stood on the front step, taking a sip of her coffee, wanting to shrug it off.

All of it--everything.

Emma Swan was _not_ a believer.

She sighed. She didn’t need her lie-detecting superpower to know when she was lying to _herself_.

Someone bumped into her in the courtyard and Emma turned to see a figure in a long topcoat walking away. She’d seen him before, Emma was sure of it. But her thoughts were elsewhere; she needed to talk to Hook again. About--the parchment.

And the dreams. Because some things--some things she couldn’t ignore any longer.

_“You know my mom’s the Evil Queen.”  
“We make quite the team, Emma.”_

Some things, she couldn’t shrug off.

_...in my wildest dreams…  
...the first time in this world..._

Emma stopped dead in her tracks.

Gold knew. He fucking _knew_.

\--

It was as she was about to turn into the street that she saw him: his back to her, his dark-leather-clad back acting almost as a shield between himself and the world. Emma took a breath and steeled herself before saying, “Hey.” It was one word--one syllable--and she had to force it past her lips. “We need to talk.”

Hook flinched at the sound of her voice. “I find,” he said, “that when a woman says that, I’m rarely in for a pleasant conversation.” He hadn’t turned to face her. “And, in case I had not made myself clear--we’re done, you and me.”

Emma walked toward him anyway, using her free hand to pull the parchment out of her back pocket. The coffee went down on the table, next to his flask, which was uncorked.

“I need you to tell me about this,” she said. There was a flash of pain in his eyes before his zero-fucks-to-give-mask slipped into place, and Emma sat down opposite him. “I need you to tell me about the boy in this picture. Who is he?”

“I like the commanding voice, Swan, all, ‘who is he’. Truly--chills.” Hook took a sip from his flask, giving an exaggerated shudder.

“Why does he look like Henry Mills, Hook?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hook said cooly.

Emma took a deep breath. “Henry likes you,” she said, trying not to let her frustration through. “He trusts you. He apparently believes your bullshit fairytale nonsense and thinks that I’m some kind of savior and you’re Captain Hook.”

She was not successful, and this did not go unnoticed by Hook; his lips turned just slightly upward in a smirk.

“I am Captain Hook, Swan,” Hook said, “just as you are the Savior. These things remain true irrespective of the boy’s beliefs. But that drawing is not of Regina Mills’ adopted son.”

Emma smacked her hand on the table, hard. The coffee cup jumped. “His _book_ , Killian. He’s got a fucking book of all of the same stories you’ve been spewing. And,” Emma said, not noticing the color rising in Hook’s face, “He’s not Regina Mills’ son. He’s _mine_. My kid, and you had _his picture_ in your desk, and I need to know why.”

Hook was completely silent and the weight of what she’d said began to sink in.

_Mine.  
My kid._

“That’s not Henry,” Hook said again, more slowly this time. His expression was troubled, his eyebrows furrowed. He seemed to be considering his words with extreme care as he shifted in his seat and removed his leather jacket.

“Milah,” he said softly, deftly working the left cuff of his shirt unbuttoned with his right hand. He proceeded to roll the cuff up off of his wrist and past his forearm until it revealed the tattoo she’d caught a glimpse of only that morning. It was a red heart pierced with a dagger and the name MILAH was emblazoned across both. “That’s Milah, Swan. My Milah, and her son.”

Emma shook her head, pointing at the picture, her other hand clutching her to-go cup. “That’s Henry, Hook. They could be fucking twins.”

The color was slowly draining from Hook’s face. “That’s _Baelfire_ , Swan,” he said, his voice insistent. “Bae, we called him. Milah drew that portrait herself, to remind herself that one day we would go back for him. I watched her do it, though she died before we were able to make the attempt.” He looked away from her before adding, “Bae could have been _my_ son, if I had had the strength to let him in.”

 _My son_.

“I don’t understand.” Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

“Baelfire is Henry’s father,” Hook said seriously. “It was obvious to me the first moment I saw him without the influence of the curse clouding my mind.”

Emma’s mind was reeling, and she took a sip of the cold coffee just to break their eye contact. It tasted sour going down, but she took another. And another, ignoring the feeling in her stomach even as he said the words.

“I know not what means he may have used to travel to this realm, nor what name he adopted once here, but there can be no mistake.” Hook paused, uncomfortable. “He stayed with me for a time in Neverland.”

She _shouldn’t_ believe him--but she did. He was telling her the truth.

“Henry’s father’s name is Neal,” Emma whispered finally, closing her eyes. “Neal Cassidy.”

Damn it, she’d always _known_ he was older than he’d said he was. She was feeling an irrational urge to laugh.

Or maybe cry.

Just--what even was her life?

Emma tightened her grip on the coffee cup like it was some kind of lifeline.

“Swan,” Hook’s voice was urgent, and Emma felt his fingers brush against her wrist. “Are you telling me the truth? You--you knew Bae? Henry is, truly, your son?”

 _He’s_ mine.  
_My kid._

That was the first time she’d ever let herself say that.

The thought made her dizzy. Emma let go of the cup to put her head in her hand and leaned her weight into it, bracing herself.

“Emma,” Hook said. The fingers around her wrist pulled tighter. “Emma--Swan, are you all right?”

The cup fell over, spilling cold coffee onto the table.

“What did you do?”

Emma tried to answer, but couldn’t. She also could not seem to open her eyes.

“What did you do?” Hook repeated. “Answer me!”

The last thing she remembered as she blacked out was the feeling of Hook’s fingers threaded through hers.


	7. Chapter 7

She couldn’t open her eyes.

Her head was pounding.

Her cheek was against something flat, cold and hard.

“There’s no need to be rash,” a voice was saying. She knew that voice. “We can discuss this.”

The floor. Emma was face-down on the floor.

“Your pretty face buys you a lot,” a woman answered, “but my time is too valuable.”

“Ooooh,” the male voice said. Hook’s voice.

And his pretty, pretty face.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

God, her head was spinning.

The woman laughed. _Cora_. They sounded, somehow, far away, their voices drifting around the pain in her head, settling with her on the floor.

Her wrists were cuffed, Emma realized suddenly.

“It seems more fitting to leave you here,” Cora said, “with your thirst for revenge unquenched.”

There was a pause and a grunt of pain. “You think you care for her,” Cora said, “but you know she won’t trust you.”

Emma did not hear him answer before she passed out again.

\--

Her head was pounding.

Her cheek lay against something flat, cold and hard.

“What in the bloody hell did you think you were doing?” Hook’s voice, again--and this time, flush with emotion instead of careful and detached. He sounded closer, too, and Emma took a deep breath, trying to move, trying to _wake up_ , to--

There was a feeling of pressure against her leg, just for a second. She started to move again; the pressure became insistent. Obediently, Emma went limp.

“I’m doing whatever it takes,” a man said in an unfamiliar voice. “Whatever it takes, Hook, to break this curse.”

“You didn’t have to do _this_ ,” Hook insisted.

“You’re one to talk,” the man said. “After everything you did to end up here?”

The silence was so sudden and so stark that Emma could almost _feel_ it, as if it had texture. Beside her, she felt Hook go completely rigid.

“And what do you know about that?” Hook asked.

“I know the lengths you were willing to go to ensure your revenge, once upon a time,” the man said. “And I know that you’ve never followed through on your intentions. That is a mistake I _will not_ make.”

“There was no need for you to drug or kidnap anyone,” Hook said.

“There was no _need_ ,” the man sneered, “for you to kill anyone, and yet you did. Anyway, she’s fine--aren’t you, Savior?”

Emma felt a kick against her boot, and opened her eyes. She tried, and failed, to sit up. She was cuffed, her hands behind her back, on the floor of a large living room in what seemed to be a large house. Emma rolled over and had a view of a high ceiling, and of Hook.

“Easy, love,” Hook whispered, his lips barely moving. As best she could tell, Hook was similarly restrained, and his eyes were glued on their captor.

“Not that I don’t understand why you’d want to help her,” the man said with a leer. “I’m just not sure I understand the method behind your madness.” He kicked her boot again. “Get up.”

That’s when Emma recognized him--the man in the top coat, the one who had been following her. The one she had seen outside the diner.

The one who had come at her with a knife in the alley outside The Rabbit Hole.

“It’s you,” Emma said. “Why have you been following me?”

“Because,” he said, “you, Emma Swan, are the solution to all of my problems.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” she said, “but if you hurt me--us--I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

“‘Us’,” he repeated. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

He looked at her with something approaching pity as he pulled her upright, until she was sitting next to Hook instead of sprawled on the floor. “I know what you refuse to acknowledge, Emma Swan,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, as if they were sharing a secret. He pointed at Hook and added, “Hook knows it too, don’t you, Captain?”

“Jefferson,” Hook said, his voice sharp. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want, Hook,” he said. “For the last twenty-eight years, I’ve been stuck in this house. Day after day, always the same. But she is going to help me, because she’s special.”

“You’re insane,” Emma said.

“Because I speak the truth? Perhaps you’re the one that’s mad. What’s crazier than seeing and not believing?” He looked at her with eyes that almost focused. “Unless--tell me, Savior, can you feel it in your dreams? Twined in memory’s mystic band?”

“What do you want, Jefferson?” Hook was impatient.

“I want her to get it to work,” he said. “She’s the only one who can get it to work.” He turned around and pulled something off of the desk that stood behind him: a hat. It was, Emma saw, one of many; they lined every shelf in the room.

“You want me to make a hat?” Emma said. “Because, what, you don’t have enough of them?”

“None of them _work_ ,” he said, as if that was supposed to mean something. “You have magic. Make one like this.” There was a pair of shears on the desk, and a folded piece of black fabric.

She turned to Hook. “The Mad Hatter? Seriously?”

“I hate Wonderland,” Hook said with some feeling. His eyes were still on the Hatter and he held himself tense and ready in spite of his restraints.

“My name,” the man said to Emma, “is Jefferson. And you and your friend are not leaving here until you make my hat. Until you get it to work.”

“We’re not friends,” Emma snapped, and Jefferson’s smile was slightly feral.

“I didn’t mean him,” he said, and left the room.

\--

“He’s a portal jumper,” Hook said, his voice casual. “That’s what the hat does--it opens a portal by which one may travel to another realm.”

“Is what he’s saying even possible?”

“Aye,” he said. “It’s possible.”

“And that’s why he’s--the way he is? Because he’s been trapped in this house?”

“It’s quite difficult, Swan, living in a land where you don’t belong,” Hook said. “Knowing that--holding conflicting realities in your head--it could easily drive a man mad.”

“And he just--” Emma shrugged, shifting a bid from the movement. “He just expects me to wriggle my nose and _poof,_ his wishes are granted?”

“No,” Hook said. “I doubt very much that is what he expects.” But Hook’s tone was contemplative.

“I’m not a genie, is what I am saying,” Emma grumbled. “Or a witch.”

He looked at her then. “I may not belong here, either, but I’ve been here for twenty-eight years,” he said. “I get things.”

Emma shrugged again, and Hook sighed.

“That’s what you’re not understanding, Swan. You are a witch--or, more precisely, you have _magic_. That’s what they want. They want your magic. They want you to break this curse.”

“Even Cora?” Emma asked, and Hook’s body went tense again.

“ _Especially_ Cora,” he said. “In fact--” He stopped, his lips pressed into a thin line. It was as if he wanted to say more, but felt like he couldn’t, and Emma realized Hook thought someone was watching them.

Cora.

It was Cora who had bailed him out, and Cora who had been in the house with them. Only-- _had_ she? There was no sign of her now; loathe as Emma was to admit it, even to herself, she had no idea if she had actually been conscious or if she had been dreaming.

It was not a new thought.

_“Did you feel it in your dreams?”_

Emma shook her head, trying to reset her focus. “So it was Cora,” she said, “who you used to work for, back in the--” Only she couldn’t say it--couldn’t make herself say the words _Enchanted Forest_.

“Regina,” Hook said, correcting her. “It was Regina who approached me.” His mouth twisted. “She had a job for me. She knew I was _motivated_. She sent me to kill her mother, whom I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

“I thought Cora was Regina’s mother,” Emma said, somewhat stupidly. “And Cora is definitely alive.”

“Aye. She gave me a better offer.” Hook sighed again. “We sailors have an old saying, Swan: ‘Any port in a storm’.”

“And you were in a storm?”

Their eyes met. “For a very long time,” he said. “When Milah died--”

Hook shifted his weight, breaking their eye contact. “ _‘Oft I have heard_ ,’” he recited softly, _“‘that grief softens the mind / And makes it fearful and degenerate; Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.’”_

“Right,” Emma said. “Obviously.”

“Shakespeare,” he said, smiling slightly when Emma rolled her eyes.

“Show-off,” Emma muttered, then realized something. “So who does Jefferson think you killed?”

“Perhaps he believes I succeeded in achieving Regina’s objective,” Hook said.

Emma raised her eyebrows. “You’re lying,” she said.

He shifted again. Emma had never seen him fidget before. “I’ve done a lot of unconscionable things, Swan,” he said finally. “But what I did to get here--what I did to my brother--that might be the worst.”

“To Liam?”

“Liam,” Hook said, “is not the first brother of mine to bear that name.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Emma leaned toward him, bumping her shoulder against his, and Hook opened his eyes. Surprise colored his features for an instant before another one of his masks slid into place.

“My father,” Hook said. “When I was quite young, he did something for which I could never forgive him.”

“He sold you,” Emma said, surprising him again.

“Aye,” Hook said. “And I killed him for it. In front of his young son, Liam. His son, Liam, whom he had named for my elder brother.” He sounded angry and confused, as if it had happened yesterday instead of decades ago. “I thought it was a dream--or rather, a nightmare. A spell contrived by Regina to reveal my weaknesses. You see, Swan, it should not have been possible for my father to be alive still, more than two centuries after I had seen him last.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” Emma said.

“But all magic comes with a price,” Hook said. “Liam, it seems, was mine. When I began to Awaken, I realized who Liam was. I realized what I had done. He should not exist and yet he has lived as my brother for almost thirty years.”

“You love him,” Emma said.

Hook didn’t answer. He just--he _looked_ at her.

“Right,” Emma said, resigned. “Well, I guess this is about the time for it.”

“The time for what?”

“The story of my life,” she said. She shrugged, feeling the weight of her restraints.

“I know a fair bit of it already,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Open book--storybook--whatever.”

“No, lass,” he said, his voice very low and very soft. “You should know as well as anyone that Lost Ones recognize their own.”

It was the tone of his voice that made her decide. She straightened up, clenching her jaw. It _hurt_ , this part, but somehow she felt like she owed him.

Like maybe she hadn’t been wrong about him.

Emma nodded to herself and said: “Neal was a thief. But he was older, and charming, and it was wonderful. Except it was all a lie, and I wound up in jail, pregnant. Alone. Lost, I guess. I put the kid-- _Henry--_ up for adoption _._ And I haven’t seen him since. The end.”

“Baelfire left you?” Hook’s voice was sad, but somehow unsurprised. “To take the punishment for his sins?”

Emma nodded again, her jaw still clenched. “And now, all of _this_ happens, and you’re telling me that Neal is a part of it and that his father is _fucking Rumplestiltskin_ and my son’s mother is the goddamn _Evil Queen_ and I don’t even know what my life is anymore.”

She slumped a little bit, hunching her shoulders forward. Hook shifted again, and then his entire demeanor changed as he adopted an air of forced cheerfulness. “Well then,” he said, “you’ll be glad to know that I’ve recovered something of yours.”

“Something of mine?”

“You must have lost it in the abduction,” he said. None of the words made sense, but nothing about them seemed to be a lie.

“What--what is it?”

He shrugged again, and his shoulder brushed against hers, an echo of her own tentative gesture. “Your ring, of course. I know that it was a treasured gift.”

_The reason that I’m still alive…  
This reminder that I once had a family._

They had fought about the ring--his brother’s ring, Liam’s ring--only that morning. Emma could still feel the force of his anger.

She could still feel his breath across her lips.

“And you kept it?” Emma said with a wry smile, pulling at her restraints, trying to play along.

Trying to buy time.

“A pirate,” he said, “always keeps a souvenir of his conquests, love. But perhaps ‘tis better that you know it isn’t lost. You could do with a reminder that you have people who care for you.”

_“Besides Graham, I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of anything,” she whispered.  
“But you could be,” Hook said, reaching for the chain that hung around his neck and pulling it off, dangling a ring in the empty space between them. “Keep this,” he said. “You could do with a reminder.”_

He was lying--the words were literally false--and yet nothing about what he was saying was untrue. His voice was affectedly upbeat, but his eyes were serious and earnest.

All of her mental alarm-bells should have been ringing, and yet none of them were.

Emma suddenly understood: he still thought they were being watched.

But he wanted her to have--to know--

_“You think you care for her."  
“But you know she won’t trust you.”_

He leaned in and his breath was against her skin again; for an instant, in spite of everything, it was as if they were the only two people in the world.

_Keep this. You could do with a reminder._

She _understood_ , she--

“Our deal stands,” he whispered, the words tickling her ear. “Whatever hurts Cora helps me, Swan.” He didn’t pull back.

Emma exhaled, and nodded. But she didn’t pull back, either.

They lingered there, in the place between what was and ‘what’s next’, each bleeding over into the other’s personal space. And then--

There was a crash, and a noise, from elsewhere in the house.

“What the fuck was that?” Emma asked, hauling herself quickly to her feet and extending one of her freed hands to Hook.

He chuckled, dangling the ring from his outstretched hand.

His _freed_ hand, with an open handcuff still hanging off of his wrist.

“Seriously?” Emma said.

But she took the ring, putting it around her neck while he sat there and waited.

“Pirate,” Hook said simply, before grasping her arm and pulling himself upright.

\--

Emma had no idea what she expected to see as she and Hook pushed open the door between themselves and the noise--but it was not her roommate tied to a chair.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret said. “Thank goodness!” She struggled, pulling against her cuffs as Hook bent down next to her.

_Tumblers,_ Emma thought to herself, remembering Neal Cassidy’s advice on the subject of locks. _It’s all about the tumblers_. She watched Hook and realized suddenly who, exactly, had taught Neal to be so adept at lock-picking.

_He stayed with me for a time in Neverland._

“What is she doing here?” Emma asked, gesturing at Mary Margaret. “What are you doing here?”

“I was walking along the edge of the neighborhood,” Mary Margaret said. “Thinking about--well, you know. A man appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me. Why are you here?”

“A man appeared out of nowhere,” Emma said, “and grabbed me. Us.” She waved a hand at Hook, who nodded his head in acknowledgement. Mary Margaret extended her arms and Hook stood up, offering her his own arm for balance.

“Milady,” he said, and winked. _Winked_.

Emma glared. “Why is she here?”

“Snow White has been a particular focus for both Cora and Regina for as long as I’ve known either of them,” Hook said. “I imagine no other reason was necessary, especially given her recent dalliance with the prince.”

“The prince--David?”

“Aye,” Hook said. Then: “Were you injured?”

“No,” Mary Margaret said, looking from Emma to Hook and back again. “Did you just call me Snow White?” Mary Margaret lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Why does he know about David?”

Hook smirked. “I’m missing a hand, milady. Not my hearing.”

Emma snorted.

“Are you talking about the storybook?” Mary Margaret asked. “The fairy tale of Snow White and Prince Charming?”

“Aye,” Hook said again.

“I gave that to Henry Mills,” Mary Margaret said, eyeing Hook with suspicion. “Why would you know about that?” She lowered her voice again. “Why does the bartender from The Rabbit Hole know about that?”

“Hook, milady,” he said, his voice an exaggerated stage whisper. “My name is Hook. And I own the bar, as it happens.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I--” she paused, pulling on the chain around her neck, searching for the words that would convince her friend. “I trust him.”

Lost Ones recognized their own--when she looked into his eyes, she saw herself.

“Okay,” Mary Margaret said, apparently satisfied.

“That’s it?” Emma said, surprised.

“If you trust him, Emma, that’s enough for me,” Mary Margaret said.

The tips of Hook’s ears were very slightly pink as he said, “Then we’d best be going, before our host notices our absence.”

“Who?” Mary Margaret said. “Who took us?”

“Me.” Jefferson’s voice trembled and his eyes blazed, bright and unfocused. He stood in the open doorway and did not look like a man completely in control of himself.

“I see you found your friend,” he said to Emma.

“Swan,” Hook snapped. It was a warning, and Jefferson’s face lit up.

“You’re smarter than you seem, pirate,” he said. “But I’m not her.”

“Her?” Emma said.

“Your not-friend seems to think that I am not who I say I am,” Jefferson said. The words were nonsensical, but Jefferson seemed unbothered by it. His voice pitched upward, almost in a sing-song: “Whoooo are youuu?”

_“_ Who does he think you are?” Emma asked, trying to break the staring contest between the two men.

It didn’t work. “Cora,” Jefferson said, and the smile that stretched across his face was, if possible, even more unpleasant now. He didn’t take his eyes off of Hook. “She’s furious with you, pirate.”

Hook’s gaze flickered just for a second toward Emma as he said, quietly, “I have my reasons.”

“Reasons,” Jefferson scoffed. “Reasons are all well and good until somebody loses their head.” Jefferson pulled down the high collar of his shirt to reveal a scar that burned red and raw, as though it had been made yesterday.

Mary Margaret cried out as Emma asked, “What is that?”

“Let’s just say that Cora does not take kindly to being thwarted, Swan,” Hook said.

“Off with his head,” Jefferson added, running a finger across his throat in a slicing motion.

“And she can do that--” Emma said, pointing, “--here?”

“Oh, no,” Jefferson said, letting go of his collar. “Much as she might like to. That’s the issue with this world, you see: Everyone wants a magical solution for their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

“Shame,” Emma said, but Jefferson missed the sarcasm.

“The Savior, though-- _she_ has magic. And she is going to help me.”

Jefferson turned to Emma as he spoke and Hook took advantage of the momentary break by rushing him, pushing him up against the wall between one breath and the next. In the space of a blink, Jefferson was pinned at the throat by Hook’s left wrist as his right hand lingered at his hip, as if Hook was grasping for a weapon.

“What have you done to Liam?” Hook snarled.

Emma was still recovering from how quickly Hook had thrown himself at Jefferson, but Jefferson was laughing.

It didn’t feel funny to Emma--or at least, not, like, ‘ha ha’ funny.

“How did you know about him?” Hook demanded. “If you’re not Cora, how do you know?”

“You know how, Hook,” Jefferson said. “All these years, and I’ve had nothing to do but watch, and I put the pieces together. I’m mad, not stupid.”

“Debatable,” Emma muttered.

Just as quickly as Hook had moved, Jefferson struck, plowing a fist into Hook’s side and causing Hook to double over in pain as a grunt escaped him.

Just like in Emma’s dream. _Fucking hell_.

“Stop,” she said, surprising herself. “Stop.”

Both men turned to look at her. “I’ll help you,” she said to Jefferson.

The grin stretched from one end of Jefferson’s face to the other as he gestured at Mary Margaret. “Then you can tie her back up again.”

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said. It was, somehow, both a question and a reassurance.

“All will be well,” Hook said.

“It will,” Jefferson agreed. “If Emma does what I need her to do.”

Emma backed up and placed a hand on Mary Margaret’s shoulder, easing her into the chair and pulling her wrists behind it to close the handcuffs once more.

“Hook,” Jefferson said, “you too.”

Emma looked at him. He nodded his agreement, brushing his fingers against hers as she clicked the open bracelet around the arm of Mary Margaret’s chair.

“You, Savior,” Jefferson said, walking toward the open door and ushering her through with a flourish, “follow me.”

\--

The telescope caught her eye as she came back into the living room.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Emma said, pointing at the instrument. “That’s how you’ve been watching all of us.”

_I have eyes everywhere, Miss Swan._

“You’ve been spying,” Emma said. “Reporting back on all of us to Regina--and to Cora, haven’t you?” She walked over to the telescope, peering through the lens, and was shocked to see that it was trained on the window of her office.

_Swan and Humbert_.

“They killed him for a reason, you know,” Jefferson said casually.

“I don’t suppose you know what that is,” Emma said.

“I don’t concern myself much with reasons these days. All I care about is getting back to my daughter. Her name is Grace.” He said it almost as if he was reminding himself. “Here, it’s Paige. But it’s Grace. _My_ Grace.” He was pacing.

“You just want to take Grace home,” Emma said. “You want to take her back to your world.”

“It’s the one place where we can be together,” Jefferson said, sounding desperate. “Where she’ll remember who I am.”

“Here’s the thing I don’t understand,” Emma said, keeping her voice even and conversational. “What did kidnapping Mary Margaret have to do with Grace?”

“Kidnapping-- _kidnapping?”_ Jefferson was offended. “I didn’t kidnap anybody. I was saving her. I saved _her life_ today by bringing her here.”

“Saving her from what?”

“You know,” Jefferson said.

“How about you remind me?” Emma smiled, small and tight.

“We both know what happens to people who leave Storybrooke,” Jefferson said, running his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t think--”

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” Jefferson snapped. He was pulling at his hair, now. “The curse, it’s the curse, driving us all mad. We’re all mad here.”

“I’m certainly getting there,” Emma said.

“You must be,” he said, “or you wouldn’t be here. It’s keeping all of us trapped, in the world and yet not of it. We’re forever isolated, all of us--except for you.”

“And you really believe that? You believe that an Evil Queen cast a magic spell and sent everyone here, to a neighborhood in an ordinary city, and trapped them all in a world with no happy endings?”

“I believe six impossible things before breakfast, Savior,” Jefferson said. “And this isn’t impossible.” He pointed at the desk, the one laid out with fabric and shears. “Now fix my hat.”

Emma sat down. The shears were long and sharp, longer and sharper than any knife she’d ever seen, and it occurred to her to use them as a weapon--only her particular school of hard knocks had not included self-defense via craft supply. She made a few half-hearted attempts with the shears, cutting out shapeless blobs that frayed slightly at the edges when she pulled them.

“I know what it’s like to be separated from your kid,” Emma said, putting the shears down. “It can make you feel like you’re losing your mind.” She could still remember those first days after giving birth, chained to a bed in the prison maternity ward, torn between making herself forget any of it had ever happened and desperately trying not to imagine what her son looked like. And now she knew--he looked like Neal. All of the best parts of him in one tiny person, his hair and his eyes and his smile.

Henry had a beautiful smile.

“I’m not losing my mind,” Jefferson insisted. “I’m not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.”

_Once upon a time, there was an enchanted forest, and its denizens included all of the fairy tale characters you think you know, until they found themselves in a place where all of their happy endings had been stolen.  
_ _Time stopped, and everyone was trapped._

_"Every story you’ve read, some version of it has actually happened.”  
“You’re going to bring back the happy endings. It says so in the book.”_

“Maybe,” Emma said. “Maybe it is.”

Jefferson stopped pacing. “You believe?”

_Emma Swan was_ not _a believer._

Emma shrugged. “If what you say is true, that woman in the other room is my mother.” She paused, took a breath.

_Her mother._

“And I want to believe that,” Emma confessed. “I want to believe that more than anything in the world.”

_"You’re so much like her.”_

“Maybe you’re right,” Emma said. “Maybe I need to open myself up more. Maybe--if I want magic--I have to start believing.”

Jefferson positively quivered with excitement. “Help me,” he said. “I know you can get it to work.”

Emma grasped the shears by their handles. “I can try.”

Jefferson turned around, and Emma struck. She jumped out of the chair, knocking the hat off the corner as she slashed at his back with the shears. She knocked him across the jaw with the handles and watched him fall, unconscious, to the floor.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, her breaths coming in gasps as she pulled the door to the hallway open again--

\--to find Hook and Mary Margaret heading straight for her.

“Emma!” Mary Margaret was relieved, pulling her into a hug.

“Swan,” Hook said with a smile. “Depriving me of a dashing rescue, I see?”

“Sorry, Hook,” Emma said, and somehow, she was smiling too. “The only one who saves me is me.”

“Emma!” Mary Margaret said again. “Look out!”

Emma felt like her breath was pushed out of her body as Jefferson tackled her and they fell to the ground, taking Mary Margaret with them. The shears fell just out of Emma’s reach and she got an elbow in the face as Jefferson lunged for them, Mary Margaret pulling back on him as hard as she could.

“Hook,” Emma yelled. “How about that rescue?”

With the heel of his boot, Hook stomped on Jefferson’s wrist as he reached for the shears, and then took two steps forward to help Mary Margaret to her feet. Jefferson had Emma on her back and she could see the scar that crossed his neck again; behind him, Hook pulled something off the wall and tossed it to Mary Margaret.

Emma kneed him in the groin as she got herself off the ground, trying to haul Jefferson up with her.

“Off with his head,” Jefferson whispered, and, pulling a knife out of his coat pocket, he slashed at Emma’s face just as Mary Margaret hit him in the head with a croquet mallet. He reeled sideways, the knife still slashing, his eyes angrier than ever.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said, “push!”

And then kicked him in the ass, sending him flying out of the window.

“Are you okay?” Mary Margaret asked, completely unfazed.

“Yeah,” Emma said, breathing heavily and clutching at a stitch in her side. “I’m fine.” She took a step toward the window and faltered, using the wall to hold herself up.

“Really?” Emma said to Hook. “You’re not going to lend me a hand?”

Eyes twinkling, he shrugged, then offered his hand.

Emma smacked him, fighting the urge to stick out her tongue. Turning to Mary Margaret, she said, “Have you been taking kickboxing classes and not telling me about it?”

Mary Margaret shook her head. “I have no idea where that came from.”

A commotion outside, and Emma heard someone--maybe several someones--heading up the stairs and shouting.

“Someone’s coming,” Emma said, trying to stand upright.

“Emma!” The voice was coming from the hallway.

Mary Margaret tilted her head. “That sounds like Henry Mills,” she said.

“EMMA!” There was worry in his voice, and Emma remembered in a flash that Henry and Liam had been sitting in the courtyard when Jefferson had done--whatever it was he’d done--to her coffee and to her. Henry must have seen what happened, and Emma felt a rush of sadness mingled with something else.

Maybe pride.

Definitely affection.

And shock--because the one thing Emma still knew for certain about Neal Cassidy was that he had never once come back for her, and yet his ten-year-old son had rushed headlong into danger without a second thought. Which, actually, was probably a bad habit for a ten-year-old to have, but they could discuss that later, over cocoa and cinnamon, and Emma was definitely going to have to add a little rum from Hook’s flask.

Just to hers, though--there was a limit on how many bad habits she could _allow_ her ten-year-old son to have, she thought as he made it to the door and flung himself at her, as she found herself wrapping her arms around him and saying, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“I was so worried,” he mumbled as he stepped back. “So was Liam.”

Liam didn’t look worried so much as nervous as Hook pulled him into an embrace.

“Emma.” Mary Margaret, who was peering out the window, had a strange expression on her face.

“What’s up?” Emma said, walking back to her friend.

“He’s gone,” Mary Margaret said. “And--”

Emma stuck her head out, feeling Hook at her shoulder as if to steady her. Then she saw what had Mary Margaret so confused. “Is that--”

“The hat,” Hook said. “Aye.”

There was no sign of Jefferson anywhere.


	8. Chapter 8

Emma wanted to go to Granny’s for grilled cheese--and onion rings--but “The Rabbit Hole is closer, Swan, I insist” and “I don’t think you lot quite realize what a set of targets you present to the opposition” proved pretty persuasive.

“What about you?” Emma said

“What about me, Swan?”

“You’re a target, too. Jefferson could--”

Hook laughed. "Jefferson is gone, love. Probably stuck somewhere between realms." His expression turned speculative and he sighed. "Not a kind fate, that, but I assure you: I have means of defending meself.”

Emma opened her mouth to argue, but changed her mind and closed it again when his arm brushed against hers as they walked. “Worry not, Swan,” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. “I’m a survivor.”

Emma wasn’t worried.

She didn’t _worry_ , just--she’d already lost Graham. She wasn’t going to let anyone else die on this case, whether that was Captain Hook or the Big Bad Wolf. Which--maybe Ruby could bring snacks.

Mary Margaret pulled her aside. “Emma,” she said, “are you and Hook--?”

“No,” Emma said. “Definitely not.” Emma ignored Mary Margaret’s eyes on the chain around her neck. “Seriously, Mary Margaret, I have a policy of not going out with people who don’t tell me their real names.” It helped weed out the ones who kept secrets, but--

_Killian Jones.  
‘Killian’ will do._

Emma wondered when someone had last called him ‘Killian’.

Then she realized it had been her.

_“His book, Killian."  
"He’s got a fucking book of all of the same stories you’ve been spewing.”_

“His real name?” Mary Margaret said. “His brother just called him ‘Jamie’.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “It’s--uh--it’s kind of a long story.”

“Oh,” Mary Margaret said. There was a pause, and then she said it again. “ _Oh,_ like, in the book? There was a story in the book about--”

“Yeah, he’s, um--”

“A villain, milady,” Hook said, pulling something out of the satchel his brother handed to him--a silver hook, a _fucking_ silver hook, the one she had seen in her dreams.

Or, more likely, the one she had seen in his desk.

Either way, he removed his prosthetic hand and clicked the hook into place.

“Oh,” Mary Margaret said for a third time. Her voice was faint. “Is that--”

“Mine?” Hook said, winking at Emma as if to say ‘ _I told you so’_. “Yeah.”

Emma rolled her eyes, which made Hook grin, and Henry’s mouth fell open. “Cool!”

Liam was wary, though he let his brother pull him into a half-embrace, one arm draped across his shoulder. Henry was thrilled.

“I knew it,” he said. “I _knew_ you were Captain Hook, didn’t I, Emma?”

“Yeah, kid,” Emma said. “You really did.” She could feel Hook’s eyes on her as she ruffled Henry’s hair; just for an instant, his expression changed.

_The look you get when you’ve been left alone_.

“I’m hungry,” Henry said.

“I’ll call Ruby,” Emma said, smiling at him, before her gaze wandered back behind the bar. Hook’s face was, one again, impassive, and the grin he flashed was the one she knew he reserved for the co-eds.

Emma had just hung up the phone after giving orders to a protesting Ruby--”Just, like, a fuckton of grilled cheese and onion rings and whatever else, Red, bring it over to The Rabbit Hole as soon as humanly possible”--when she heard Henry speaking to Hook. Mary Margaret had brought him over to the bar, watching him with curiosity.

“I don’t think you’re a villain,” Henry said, his voice earnest and serious.

Hook looked quickly at Emma, then at Liam, who was sitting next to Henry, and then at Henry himself before he seemed able to find words. “Is that so, lad?”

Liam wasn’t quite facing his brother, but Emma could see that he was leaning, just slightly, toward Henry.

“Yeah,” Henry said. “I mean, I know you did a lot of bad stuff.”

“I did,” Hook said quietly. He looked at Emma over Henry’s head.

_“I haven’t lived a good life, and I’ve done worse things than you can ever imagine.”_

“You lost your True Love,” Henry said. “It made you go dark. But I don’t think that’s who you are anymore. I think you’ve changed.”

Liam had shifted, facing Henry. His expression was speculative.

_“I was given a gift: To wake up, for twenty-eight years, and not dread the day before it began. To live the same day, over and over, and to welcome it, because I felt like someone alive._ _But my constant pursuit of revenge--for the death of the crocodile--left my life empty."  
"That’s the thing about revenge, you see: it’s an end, not a beginning.”_

Emma walked up behind Henry, putting her hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. Then, she put her hand on the bar, next to Hook’s, their fingers so close as to nearly be touching. He wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at their hands on the wooden surface, and she had to angle her head so that their eyes met. She heard but did not register Mary Margaret’s intake of breath.

Hook cleared his throat and said, “Well. I need a drink. Anyone else?”

\--

Ruby showed up in short order, laden down with bags and prepared to mow down Tink at the front door.

“Scarlet,” Hook called to the barback. “Go divest the Lady Lucas of her burdens, and put a sign up. We’re closed tonight.”

Ruby gave a delighted laugh, accompanied by a curtsy as she handed the bags over. “It’s nice to see someone be a gentleman for a change,” she said.

“Always,” Hook said. “Just ask Swan for my qualifications.”

Emma blushed. “So, we’re all just going to sit here, locked in a closed bar, waiting for Regina or Cora or Gold to come and find us?” She ignored the way Ruby’s eyes were glittering.

“We’re going to rest,” he said, “and strategize.” His words were simple, but Emma could see something else in his eyes--there was more to it than that, she knew.

He was worried.

For them. For _her_. It made her fingers itch as she stopped herself reaching for the chain in what had quickly become a nervous habit.

“We need a plan!” Henry said.

“Battle plans seldom survive the first engagement with the enemy, lad,” Hook said. “But there are many things we need to discuss.”

“So if you’re not opening tonight, the cute bartender won’t be here? The other one, I mean,” Ruby said.

“Ah, Lacey,” Hook nodded, his face contemplative. “She’ll be here.”

“Excellent,” Ruby said, grabbing a sandwich out of Mary Margaret’s hands.

“Wait,” Mary Margaret said, pausing in the middle of unwrapping a plate of fries for Henry. “Did you just say--Regina? As in, Regina Mills? Is she the one who sent that man after us?”

Henry, sitting next to Liam at one of the high-topped tables, just nodded. “She’s the Evil Queen,” he said.

Liam said, “I swear, brother, I didn’t know.”

Emma wanted to jump in, to reassure him, because--seriously--how the fuck could he possibly have known? And how would he have believed it, if he did?

He said it again: “I didn’t know.”

Hook nodded. He looked like he wanted to say something but was, possibly for the first time since she had met him, at a loss for words. He looked concerned--but also, somehow, relieved, and Emma didn’t stop to think when she had learned to read his expressions so easily.

“Nobody knew,” Henry said, giving Liam an awkward pat on the shoulder and breaking the moment between the two men. “Right, Hook?”

“I knew,” Scarlet interjected, dropping a box of glassware next to Hook.

“Careful, mate,” Hook said. Scarlet flipped him a two-fingered salute and headed back into the kitchen.

“He knows,” Emma said, confirming it to herself. She remembered him standing in the alley with Hook the night of Graham’s murder.

_“Is that what you call it when someone’s heart is ripped from their body?”_

“He’s here by way of Wonderland,” Hook said. “Git.”

“You know you all sound crazy, right?” Ruby called out, in between bites of her sandwich.

Mary Margaret looked like she wanted to agree, and Emma had never loved her friend more than in that moment. Mary Margaret _trusted_ her, and even though she was as clueless and lost as Ruby, she wasn’t going to push. Not about Regina, or Jefferson, or what she had seen when she looked out the window.

The hat.

_Jefferson is gone._

It shouldn't have been possible.

“It’s quite simple, really,” Hook said. “The book of stories you, Miss Blanchard, gave to young Master Mills is not a work of fiction. It is, more properly, a history book. Our history, milady, yours and mine and Red’s. Even Swan’s.”

“Wait,” Emma interrupted, pulling herself out of her introspection and summoning a small smile. “Wait. What happened to ‘once upon a time, there was an enchanted forest’, blah blah blah?”

“Hush, Swan,” Hook said. He grinned and it lit up his entire face--his pretty, pretty face. “It’s story time.”

Ruby snickered. “You guys are adorable.”

“I’m still confused,” Mary Margaret admitted. When she smiled at Emma, there was a hint of an apology in it.

“Listen to me, lass,” Hook said. “Henry’s stories are real. Magic is real. Regina has cast a curse, trapping all of us within Storybrooke. Emma is the one who is going to break it.”

“Oh,” Mary Margaret said. Then: “You called me Snow White, before. And ‘milady’.”

“Strictly speaking, mil--Mary Margaret, where we are from, you are Snow White. You _are_ the rightful queen.”

“And you’re a gentleman,” Emma muttered.

“I am a man of honor,” he said, looking at Liam.

“This is what you call ‘simple’?” Ruby asked.

“Let me put it this way,” Hook said. “Mary Margaret, how long have you and Ruby known each other?”

“Um--”

“When did you two meet?” Hook pressed. “Do you remember?”

"No,” Mary Margaret said. “Ruby?”

“Nope,” Ruby said.

“And Humbert?” Hook said. “How long did you know Graham Humbert?”

Ruby and Mary Margaret looked at each other, but said nothing.

“And that’s the rub, isn’t it?” Hook said.

“I don’t know,” Mary Margaret said. “I mean, I suppose. But that’s just life, isn’t it? Things get hazy.”

“When did you begin your affair with Sheriff Nolan?” Hook said.

Mary Margaret blushed. “Um,” she said, flustered. “I don’t know. After Emma moved in with me.”

“And you, Red,” Hook said. “When did you begin working with Humbert?”

“After I had a fight with Granny,” Ruby said.

“And that was, I presume, after Swan moved to our little corner of the world?”

“Yeah,” Ruby said. “I guess it was. What’s your point?”

“It’s a curse,” Henry said, exasperated. “Regina stole all of the happy endings, and she made all of you forget who you really are. But it’s okay, because Emma is here. She’s going to fix it.”

“I need a drink,” Ruby said.

“Lacey should be here by now,” Hook said. “Check the kitchen.”

“Right,” Ruby said. “Whatever.” She slid off her stool and leaned over to Emma. “Don’t think we’re not going to talk about your whole making-eyes thing with the hot-slash-insane bartender, ‘kay?”

“Ruby--”

“It’s okay, Em,” Ruby said. “You do what you have to do.”

\--

Hook and his brother were deep in conversation as Emma sat at the bar, watching them.

“Do you know what that’s about?” Mary Margarest asked, settling herself next to Emma on a stool.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “A little bit.” Liam’s expressions kept shifting rapidly and she had the sense that the conversation was not going well.

And even though it wasn’t her place--it was none of her business--she was rooting for Hook, somehow. For both of them.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said, “I--”

“Yeah,” Emma said again, sighing. “I know.”

“That story Hook told. Do you believe it?”

Emma watched Mary Margaret sip at her drink and, for the first time, wanted all of it to be true. For Emma’s entire life, she had been alone, walls up, until she met Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret, who had let Emma into her life, no questions asked, and _been there_ , every day. And it was too ridiculous even to contemplate, Emma thought as she watched the bar, watched Liam walk away and the look in Hook’s eyes and Henry-- _her kid_ \--chattering happily at anyone who was listening to him, the idea that all of this could be real and all of this could be her future.

A family.

All she had to do was figure out the small matter of an Evil Queen’s curse, Emma thought, laughing because it was easier than crying and less dramatic than screaming; all she had to do was believe in magic.

“Henry seems to believe,” Mary Margaret said.

“He really does,” Emma agreed.

Henry was saying: “So, like, what should I call you? Can I call you Jamie? Or is it Jim?”

Hook gave him a bemused smile. “Killian, lad. My name is Killian.”

“Okay, Killian,” Henry said, swinging his legs and kicking the bar.

Emma felt Mary Margaret’s soothing hand rubbing against her shoulder as she watched _her kid_ and Hook-- _Killian_ \--

She was _not_ a believer.

But for the first time, she wanted to be.

\--

“Liam’s okay?”

It’s not what Emma had meant to say, and she could tell it surprised Hook just as much as it had surprised her when he paused mid-sip to examine her over the rim of his glass, the far-away look in his eyes sharpening immediately.

“I expect he is rather a long way from ‘okay,’” Hook said. “But he is not nearly as badly-off as I had feared.”

“He’s a teenager,” Emma said, with a faint smile that was meant to be encouraging.

“He’s been a teenager for the better part of the last three decades,” Hook said drily. “I might also add that moodiness is a Jones family trait and something I am intimately familiar with.” The slight trace of humor vanished from his voice as he said, “Still, Liam’s anger with me is completely justified and far better than the alternative.”

“You were worried,” Emma said. “What were you afraid had happened?”

“Something terrible,” Hook said. “Something not worth speaking of, not when you’ve already seen the results when it goes poorly.”

It took a moment for Emma to catch up.

_“Is that what you call it when someone’s heart is ripped from their body?”  
_ _“She rather held his heart in her hands.”_

“Wait,” Emma said. “Wait, wait, you thought--”

“I don’t know what is or is not possible in a Land Without Magic,” Hook said, holding his hand up to forestall her questions. “But if Cora has magic stored, then Regina undoubtedly does as well. And a person’s heart can be a very valuable and dangerous tool in the hands of someone with malign intentions.”

“Regina had--” Emma sputtered. “Graham’s heart?”

Emma turned away, needing to re-center herself and to take a deep breath. Mary Margaret had joined Ruby and Lacey in a round of cocktails. Henry was showing Liam the illustrations in his book. No one was paying them any attention. It was just her, her MacCutcheon, and Hook.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do when Regina comes for looking for Henry?” Emma whispered.

Hook grimaced. “I had not thought of that,” he admitted. “I imagine you’ll have to send him home before that happens, at least for the sake of appearances. However, I have no doubt the boy will be keen for an adventure that requires him to sneak about in the middle of the night.”

“Well,” Emma said flatly, “he obviously can’t stay there. How am I ever supposed to let him stay there again?”

“He’ll stay here,” Hook said.

Emma glared, but Hook said nothing else, just watching her and waiting.

“You’re saying he can’t stay there,” Emma said. “You’re saying that all of us need to stay here?”

“I am,” he said. “I meant what I said, Swan, I have means of defense here, meager though they may be.” He gestured--with his goddamn _hook_ \--at the walls of the bar, festooned with weapons.

“An armory,” Emma breathed.

“Now you’re catching on, love,” he said. “And amongst my belongings are several things I packed in anticipation of the curse, before I fell under its influence.”

“What, like, magic spells?”

He was silent, his eyebrows raised.

“Seriously?” Emma said.

“Listen to me, Swan,” Hook said. “Jefferson, as you have no doubt guessed, was reporting to Cora.”

“And to Regina,” Emma said.

“Indeed,” he said. “He seems to have been quite thorough in his observations over the years.”

“So where does that leave us?” Emma was in mission-mode now--ready to plot out a course of action as readily as she ever had with Graham. It was comfortable, like slipping into her favorite jacket.

“Cora and the crocodile are old allies; Regina and Cora are old foes. Cora and Rumplestiltskin want the curse broken and will likely take any means that present themselves in order to affect that result.”

“And Regina?”

“If the curse breaks, Regina loses everything,” Hook said. “And that is Cora’s heart’s desire. While her grudge with Snow White is quite real, it is her daughter--and power--that Cora craves above all else.”

“And what do I--or we--have that would give Cora power?”

“That’s what I’m still trying to work out, love,” he said. “Though I have an inkling.”

“What do we do with the others?” Emma said.

Hook smiled faintly, and Emma realized what she had said. _We_.

“I hope that the she-wolf will persuade Lacey to stay over, or perhaps it will be the other way ‘round.”

“Lacey, or Belle, or whatever,” Emma said. “She’s Gold’s--?”

“Weakness,” Hook said. “She’s the only thing that can break him. But--” he struggled, visibly uncomfortable. “Regina had her locked up. In an asylum, with no memories of any kind, cursed or no. I’m no hero, Swan; I’ve done terrible things--including to her--”

“But?” Emma prompted.

“She’s also my friend.” The declaration seemed to surprise him.

_“I had been living in a dream powered by magical nonsense,”_ he’d said. _  
“I’d had a life, and friends, and lovers, and none of it was real.”_

“What about my--what about Mary Margaret?”

“Snow White may be safe on her own,” Hook said. “Though I know not how to persuade her to stay here.”

“David has been looking for her,” Emma said. “He seemed--”

“Ah,” he said, smirking. “Cursed?”

“Like a man possessed,” Emma said.

“I believe that Charming will be quite all right without your intervention, Swan; to these people, he is little more than a pawn on a chessboard.”

“If all of that was supposed to make me feel better,” Emma said, “it didn’t.”

“It shouldn’t,” he said seriously. “Because here’s the heart of the matter, Savior: if you do not succeed in breaking the curse on your own, killing you breaks the curse just as well as anything else.”

\--

The metal of the blade was dull, like it had been worn down by the ages; more years than Emma could even contemplate had etched themselves onto the surface. It was also curved, crooked in a way that she had never known a weapon could be.

“Darkness is a funny thing,” she heard Hook whisper. “It creeps up in you.”

In spite of all of that--the blade was sharp. Emma didn’t know how she knew, but it was.

She saw it--first in Graham’s hands, then in Hook’s, as the glittery skin of the hooded reptilian figure grasped at it--missing each time.

Until he didn’t; his cry was triumphant.

Until it wasn’t.

“Vengeance is tempting. The darkness always is.”

“Resist it.”

Letters Emma hadn’t even noticed made themselves visible on the blade, then faded just as quickly as they had appeared--and somehow, she knew, that was even worse.

“As someone who started on the side of good and went dark, take my advice.”

“Why couldn’t you?” Emma asked.

Hook was sad as he spoke. “I didn’t have anything to live for, to keep me on my path,” he said. “Use whatever it takes to stay on yours. Your parents, Henry--”

Graham lay before her, dead all over again; Hook was beside him, his eyes closed and his body unresponsive. Henry was on his back, as though he had been knocked over, and a ball of fiery red energy propelled toward all of them.

\--

“I need you to tell me about the dagger,” she said.

It was late, pitch dark and deathly quiet, when Emma bolted upright in Hook’s bed. Too exhausted for formalities, and out of fucks to give, she had pulled her shirt and boots back on and eschewed her trousers, reaching for the tattered black bathrobe draped over a chair in Hook’s bedroom.

He was exactly where she had expected him to be: in the office, a glass of rum in front of him where he sat at his desk. The tumbler appeared untouched, as though it was merely something to do, or to play with, or to keep his thoughts occupied as he stared off into nothing. For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Hook seemed genuinely troubled, with no mask to cover it up and no persona to hide behind.

His sleeves were rolled up, and his hair was mussed. He still hadn’t shaved. It was when Emma stepped closer that she saw clearly the shape of the dagger on Hook’s tattoo.

“The dagger,” she repeated, though he hadn’t said anything, and pointed at his forearm. “Let me guess: the power that Cora wants is tied, somehow, to that dagger. All of this is tied, somehow, to that dagger.”

“You never cease to amaze me, Swan,” he said, finally taking a sip of his drink.

“What does the dagger have to do with Regina’s curse?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “I don’t even know if she knows that it exists. But I know this: none of us would be here were it not for this dagger.”

“What is it?”

“It is the Dark One’s dagger,” he said. “There is very little known of it, and even less written. Was there no mention of it in your son’s book of stories?”

“Killian,” she said, her voice a warning, and he stilled, which was when she noticed that she’d done it again. _Killian._

“I know of it only because of Baelfire,” he said. “It is the Dark One’s strength, just as it is his weakness and his curse. With it, the Dark One may be controlled, or killed. Baelfire saw it as the source of all of his problems and I saw in it the solution to all of mine. I spent many years looking for it, and it was that quest that tempted me to come along with Regina’s curse twenty-eight years ago. I believe that Cora seeks it now.”

“So why did I dream about it?” Emma snapped.

“You--” Hook said, then stopped. “You dreamt of the Dark One’s dagger?”

Emma felt suddenly defensive, raw and exposed. “I’ve been having dreams,” she said. “Nightmares. I’m not even sure if they _are_ dreams. Sometimes I can’t tell when I’m asleep or when I’m awake.”

“Tell me, love,” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Am I in these dreams at all?”

“You would make this about yourself,” she said, but he’d somehow succeeded in making her smile. The respite only lasted for a second, but she was grateful for it all the same.

“So what does the dagger do?” she asked.

“In this world?” He shrugged. “Nothing. It’s merely a paperweight, a decorative ornament. It becomes important if and only if the curse breaks, and once upon a time, my mission--my goal, my crusade--was to find it, and to kill the Dark One while he was vulnerable, and subject once again to human mortality in a Land Without Magic. I believe that Cora intended for me to use the dagger, and for herself to seize its power at the opportune moment.”

_“Your arrival reminded me of my purpose, but I cared not one whit whether this curse ever broke.”_

“But you never did,” she said softly.

“All magic comes with a price,” he said, not looking at her. “The price of this magic is unspeakable.”

That wasn’t the truth--or, that wasn’t all of the truth.

“Did he kill her with it?” she asked. “Milah?”

He shuddered when she said the name. “No,” he said. “The crocodile ripped her heart out while he made me watch.”

“Like Graham,” she breathed.

“Aye,” Hook agreed. “Humbert had seen the crocodile out in the woods, burying something, and had enough memory to be suspicious. He didn’t know what he was looking at, but he came to me, and I believe the crocodile killed him for it.”

“But--”

“His chicanery over your assignment, over your hiring, was nothing more than that. Merely an attempt to involve you in his web, to see if you were agreeable--something that he could use.” He paused, then said: “And, I believe, to see if I was aware of him in this new life.”

He dropped his head into his hand, scrubbing his face as he did so. “Milah wouldn't have wanted this,” he said, in a voice so low Emma didn’t think she was meant to hear it. “I would have done anything for her, but she wouldn’t have wanted this.”

“And now?” Emma said, half-afraid to know the answer. She clutched at the ring around her neck, which she still hadn’t taken off.

_“You lost your True Love.”  
_ _True Love is the rarest magic of all._

“I think Henry’s right--you’ve changed.”

“You truly believe that?” He didn’t look at her as he said it.

_“I believe in good form. I had no need to bring you there at all, much less hurt my own cause to do so.”_

“I do,” Emma said. “You’re not the same person who hitched a ride on a magic spell to commit murder. You’ve helped me when you didn’t need to, and whatever your reasons are--”

“My reasons,” Hook murmured, still not looking at her.

_“You_ , _”_ he’d said.  
_I think we could make quite the team._

“My reasons are my own, Swan,” he said, pushing the mostly-untouched glass away. The sudden motion startled her, even more so when he stood up. “Stay within the confines of the bar,” he reminded her. “The magic I managed to bring over from the _Jolly Roger_ isn’t much, but it’s all we have. Make no mistake: Cora will kill you if she sees no other way to her goal. So will the crocodile.”

“The _Jolly Roger_?” Emma couldn’t help it. “Like in _Peter Pan_?”

His laugh lacked the gentle teasing of their earlier rapport. It was mirthless and bitter and sad. “When are you going to learn, Swan,” Hook said, “that the stories all came from somewhere? When are you going to trust--?”

_Try something new, darling._

“I trust you,” she said quickly, taking a step forward and surprising both of them. “I do, and I have, probably longer than I should. Since I dreamt about this--” she tugged at the chain “--and broke into your office.”

_“Wouldn’t you make one hell of a pirate?”_

He moved, suddenly closer. “You dreamt of--I don’t--”

“I don’t understand either,” she admitted. “And I should probably give it back, anyway--”

Hook stayed her movement with his hand. It was an echo of their positions in this very office that very morning--yesterday morning--though it felt like a lifetime ago. Emma could, once again, almost grab his collar and make the space between them nonexistent.

And, just like this morning, she wanted to.

His eyes flashed. “No,” he said. “I wanted you--you should keep it, Swan.”

“A reminder?” His hand was warm against her skin, still cool from the night and the restlessness of her sleep. It sent a tingle through her, spreading out from the single point of contact.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps it shall serve as a reminder to both of us.” They were scant inches apart, and the intensity in his eyes was overwhelming.

Emma felt herself tense in anticipation, leaning forward; it was the flash of red on his arm that stopped her.

_“You lost your True Love. That made you go dark.”_

Emma closed her eyes.

_“What else did you find, princess?”_  
_"My elder brother, Liam? My dead lover, Milah?"_  
_"The crusade for vengeance that carried me for nearly three hundred years?”_

“Swan?”

_“For more years than you can imagine, I offered a black heart or an ugly death to everyone that I met, and I did it with a song in my heart--without conscience, and without remorse, because I had been done wrong.”_

“Emma?” His thumb rubbed against her wrist, and her breath caught.

She was--she as an idiot. What the fuck was she even _doing_ , getting herself mixed up with hi--this. Emma was knee-deep in the weirdest shit she’d ever seen in her life and _he_ was epically, forever taken.

She blinked, backed up. “I trust you,” she said again. “I just--I don’t know if I believe. If I can, or if I even want to.”

He said nothing. He didn’t have to; his eyes said it all.

_Liar._


	9. Chapter 9

Emma stood in the doorway, watching her son sleep for the first time in her--and his--life. His hair was just a bit too long, she realized suddenly, seeing the way his fringe fell into his eyes. Liam was on the floor, and his eyes opened when she took a step into the room. Emma shrugged--hoping he would understand what even she could not.

Because she needed to leave.

She needed to be _somewhere else_ , out of all of this, out of this bullshit of magical nonsense and curses and--everything.

She was going to take her son and she was going to get the fuck out of Dodge, away from Evil Queens and Dark Ones and roommates that felt like family and a bartender that felt like he could help her be a part of something, if only he wasn’t so monumentally fucked up.

Liam just watched her, watched her as she shook Henry gently awake, and then he nodded. He looked sad, but resigned, and Emma had to wonder: how many friends did Liam Hook truly have? Maybe he was a little lost, too, just like his brother, just like she had been.

Like she still was.

“Come on, kid,” she said, hoping her voice cut through the sleepy haze in Henry’s expression. “We’re getting out of here.”

\--

Ruby had caught her in the hallway as Emma left Hook’s office, and the grin on her face was devilish, her eyes glittering in delight. “Angsty midnights with the hot-slash-insane bartender?” she asked. “I love it.” But then she had sniffed, and though Emma knew it wasn’t possible, it was like she smelled the alcohol in the air around her, even though neither Hook nor Emma had had anything to drink.

“Angsty midnight _drinking_ sesh with the hot-slash-insane bartender?” Ruby’s expression changed, and she pulled Emma toward her, both of her hands on Emma’s shoulders, her gaze boring into Emma’s skull. “Babe, listen. You know I love you. And I know we’re going through something terrible. But--”

“I know,” Emma said.

“This is _insane_ , Em.”

“I know,” Emma said.

“There’s gotta be a better way for you to work through your shit,” Ruby said.

But that’s not what Emma did--was not how she operated.

She was going to do what she always did: run. It was all she knew how to do.

\--

Emma tried hard to not imagine Jefferson watching them through his telescope as she guided Henry toward her car. Henry’s delight with the dilapidated little yellow Beetle was almost enough to banish the worry.

Almost.

Until she started driving toward the edge of the neighborhood and the questions started.

\--

“Wait.” Henry was suddenly alert. “You want to go now? We’re leaving now?” He looked over his shoulder. “Where’s your stuff?”

“You’re all I need,” Emma said. “I’m getting you out of here. Away from all of this, away from her.”

“No.” There was steel in Henry’s voice. “No. Stop the car. You can’t leave--you have to stay, you have to break the curse.”

“I don’t,” Emma said. “I don’t have to do anything but help you.”

“Emma,” Henry said. He was pleading with her. “You’re a hero. You can’t run, not when you can help everybody.”

Emma bit her lip. “I know it’s hard for you to understand--”

“You’re scared,” Henry said. “That’s pretty easy for me to understand. I’m a kid, I’m not an idiot.” He crossed his arms.

“I’m doing what’s best for you,” Emma said, turning her blinker on as she came to the main street that would lead them back into the heart of the city. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t that why you were looking for me?”

He shook his head. “I wanted you to break the curse. I _wanted_ you to bring back the happy endings, and for us to be a family.” His voice broke. “Please, Emma, don’t make me go. We need you. Your family needs you.”

“Henry--”

He reached over and grabbed the steering wheel.

“Henry!” Emma swerved, yanking on the wheel to pull the car back onto the road and into the right lane. Her heart was racing as she turned to her son. “We need to--there’s a difference between fairy tales--fantasy--and reality.” “I’m not crazy,” Henry fumed. “Killian believes me!”

“Captain Hook’s opinion is not what I’m interested in right now, kid,” Emma snapped.

“You’re letting your feelings cloud your judgment. You’re scared, but you know I’m right. Running isn’t what’s best for me. Running is never what’s best. I thought--”

“What?” Emma said, her eyes flickering back to him.

“I thought you were different.” He slumped in his seat.

It was just a flash out of the corner of her eye--red eyes, four feet--and for a second, she would have sworn it was Graham.

The car went off the road.

\--

Something was wrong with the apple tree.

It was black, the leaves curling in on themselves; the fruit wasn’t red, but shriveled and brown.

It was dying.

The man in the animal-skin coat with the glittery skin was visibly pleased, Emma could tell. His toothy grin was wide and his fingers positively writhed with glee.

“Excellent work, Savior,” he hissed. “The curse is weakening.”

“You want the curse broken,” she said. “Why?”

“I’m planning a little trip,” he said.

“You’re going to need travel insurance,” Regina said, and Emma whirled around. “Because I’ve found a solution to my Emma Swan problem.”

It wasn’t Regina Mills but the Evil Queen that stood before her, in a gown of jet black with divided skirts that trailed behind her. She held her hand, palm up, out in front of her, and there was a ball of fire in the air. “An old, reliable solution.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Rumplestiltskin warned. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, Your Majesty, that all magic comes with a price.”

“Then you can pay it,” she seethed, and the ball of fire trembled.

An arrow shot through the air, causing the fire to extinguish itself, and Regina’s mouth dropped open. “You!” Her expression changed from shock to hurt to anger. “You could’ve hit me!”

“I never miss,” Graham said. His eyes flashed, one red and one black, and Emma saw the wolf.

\--

They were back in the office.

 _Swan and Humbert_.

“Emma,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

“You--” Emma said. “You’re--”

“Please, Emma. I need you to understand.”

“Why?”

“So that I can understand,” he whispered, and kissed her, sending warmth from the tips of her fingers straight down to her toes. It wasn’t--it wasn’t a _romantic_ feeling, it was comfort and affection and trust and connection.

It was being a part of something.

“Did you feel that?”

Emma nodded, speechless.

“That’s what you did for me,” Graham whispered. “I died a free man, Emma.”

She cupped his face in her hands, feeling the scratch of his stubble on her palms. He kissed her, again, on the crown of her head, and his fingers combed through her hair, stopping at the chain around her neck.

“Emma,” he said. “Your fate is in a precarious place. You must hurry.”

“Wait--” Emma said.

“The opportune moment will present itself,” Graham said. “The rest is up to you. Find your family, Emma. Free them from the curse.”

“You’re--can’t you come with me?”

“I cannot,” he said, but his voice held no regret. “I gave up my heart so that the queen would spare Snow White’s. Wait for the opportune moment. Don’t let my sacrifice be in vain.”

“Graham,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled him close, one more time, and kissed him softly on the mouth.

If the first time she kissed him had been a gentle brush against her soul--the warmth of a sunny day--this was an inferno, burning everything in its wake as the energy rushed through her. It was raw and unfettered as it pushed every molecule in her body, electrifying her senses until she couldn’t feel anything but him.

“It’s you,” Killian whispered. “Don’t you know, Emma? It’s all for you.”

She chased after him, searching for more, but he stopped her with a smile. “I know you feel like a pawn, love, but remember: you’re only a pawn if you don’t know you’re being played. There’s hope, Swan. All you have to do is believe.”

It was just a kiss, but it felt like--

“Just look at me,” he said, “and believe.”

It felt like magic.

\--

Emma opened her eyes. She was once again on her back, on the least comfortable mattress she had ever had the misfortune to encounter--which was saying a lot, considering some of the places Emma had slept in her life. There was a single bare bulb illuminating the space and shadows cast along the wall by the bars of the cell door.

She was in one of David Nolan’s holding cells.

“What luck,” drawled a voice--a woman, haughty and self-assured and someone Emma had heard before. “The Savior.”

Emma did not sit up as she registered the words, or the obvious capital letters of the title; she merely waited, turning her head so that the speaker came into view. Her posture was impeccable, and though she did not appear especially tall she established a sense of presence. There was not a hair out of place on her head and her clothing was simple, but obviously expensive. It was easy to see where--who--Regina Mills had learned her habits from.

“Cora Mills,” Emma said, her attention going back to the ceiling and the bulb, making her affect as disinterested as possible. “You look pretty good for a dead woman.”

“So do you, dear.”

Emma’s already-spinning head took a moment to process that, and a deep breath that she hoped was not noticeable--but she did not give Cora the satisfaction of a reaction.

There was a low, throaty chuckle. “I’m glad to see you’re not wasting your energy on pleasantries, Miss Swan.”

Damn.

A villain with a sense of humor, then. Not that Emma had the energy to spare for ‘pleasantries,’ not after the accident and the dreams and--

“Hook?” Cora said.

Emma once again did not allow herself to react, but she wanted to, as she heard the footsteps, low and languid, and the dry tone of his voice when he said, “Startling, aren’t I?”

It took no effort at all for Emma to imagine him making an ironic bow. “Some might even say striking,” he said.

Emma willed herself not to move, to maintain her calm demeanor. She didn’t even turn to look at him, not when she recognized the cadence of his words and the harshness of his consonants.

“I appreciate the warm welcome,” he said into the silence. He gave new meaning to the word deadpan. “And what have we here, Your Majesty?”

 _That_ got Emma’s attention--fucking hell, was everybody royalty in this magical, mystical Enchanted Forest? She turned to face him, finally, unsurprised to see the carefully blank expression on his face. He lifted an eyebrow at the movement. “Oh,” he said, licking his lips. “Don’t get up, princess. Not when I can think of so many pleasurable things to do with a woman on her back.”

In spite of his tone--and his leer and his stupid fucking eyebrow--a shiver went through her as Emma remembered all of the times in their crazy-short acquaintence when the space between them had seemed nonexistent, the pull between them too great, and she wondered. She thought of the way he had kissed her in her dream and the way it had made her feel, and she wondered.

Just how many things did he know how to do, with a woman on her back?

“‘Your Majesty’?” Emma repeated, trying to shake herself loose of his jibe, and his eyebrow, and that other title. Speaking of royalty.

_“Do not misunderstand me, princess.”_

“Cora is the Queen of Hearts,” Hook replied, and she did not have to imagine it this time, the ironic tilt of his head or the quirk of his mouth. “In Wonderland.”

 _“I hate Wonderland.”_ That’s what he’d said, and he’d meant it all the way down to his bones, but there was no emotion in his words as he turned back to Cora. As if he was done with her already.

 _“The time for that is done."  
"Just as I have done with you._”

It was his voice that was doing that to her, making her doubt, making her uncomfortable, and it didn’t help when he said, “Cora, darling--you seem to have a Savior in a cage. How does one come upon such treasure?”

_“It’s you, Emma. It’s all for you.”_

Emma closed her eyes.

“After everything we’ve been through, Hook, why do you still doubt me?”

_It’s all for you._

_“_ When I’m the one who brought you here, and preserved your memories--your purpose?”

_“Your arrival reminded me of my purpose, but I cared not one whit whether this curse ever broke.”_

“I may be a simple pirate,” he said, “but I know where my interests lie. How else do you think she wound up so easily in your grasp? It was all about waiting, my dear Cora, for the opportune moment.”

Emma covered her sharp inhalation with a cough.

_“Wait for the opportune moment.”_

That’s what Graham had said--that’s what the man in her dreams had said.

“You might have imparted that advice to Jefferson,” Hook said darkly. “You realize he almost cost you everything?”

Killian. Killian had said that. Not Captain Hook.

This was it, Emma knew.

_The opportune moment._

“Satisfied?” Hook asked Cora.

Emma was in a cell with a woman capable of murder and worse on the other side of the bars, and all Emma had was her wits and--if she could let herself believe it--Hook. She ignored his words, his tone, his eyebrow, all of it, and listened to what lay beneath: the flash of desperation she was sure she wasn’t imagining, and that phrase. Hook didn’t know--couldn’t know--that she had dreamt of him saying that. He didn’t know that she had overhead his rift with Cora.

_“You chose her. Now you have to live with the consequences of that decision.”_

He was trusting her. Trusting her to trust him.

_Try something new, darling._

“You,” Emma spat.

_It’s you, Emma. It’s all for you._

She stood up quickly and walked the three steps to the bars. “That’s why--that’s why you gave me _my_ necklace back. It was all about making me believe I could trust you.” Emma put the extra emphasis on ‘my’ and waited, watching him as he took two steps forward and leaned his head so that he was almost directly against the cell door--so that their eyes met, and Emma knew she wasn’t imagining what she saw there.

Hope.

Just a flash, and so quickly she almost missed it--so quickly that she would have missed it, except that she was looking for it for the first time in her life.

“I should have known,” Emma said, putting bitterness into her words. “You’re not exactly the sentimental type, are you?”

It was funny, or it should have been, to accuse the man who claimed to have carried a grudge for three centuries of not being emotional.

“I’m not,” he agreed, biting off the word. “You should have thanked me, Swan. That’s what’s customary when one receives a gift.” His body blocked Emma’s view of Cora as his fingers brushed against hers, and Emma couldn’t suppress the shiver as she felt him. The same warmth and tingle she had felt in the office-- _“Perhaps it shall serve as a reminder to both of us”--_ he’d said, and she felt it again, the anticipation.

“Right,” Emma said sarcastically. “Because you’re a goddamn gentleman.” She stepped back, as much for herself as for the pretense, and she clamped her fingers around the small metal pin he had slipped her.

Maybe they really were a team.

“Because I believe in good form,” he said. It was his turn to step away and return his attention to Cora. “And speaking of intentions, love, what are yours toward our captive friend? Mercy seems a bit out of character.”

“Oh, not mercy, Hook,” Cora said. Her eyes were sharp and narrow and focused entirely on Emma. “She’s going to help me, whether she wants it or not. I intend to get what I need.”

Emma straightened her spine and looked Cora dead in the eye.

“It doesn’t matter,” Emma said. “You’re still going to lose.”

Cora laughed. “Such bravery.”

Emma could do this. Emma _did_ do this, day in and day out--got her skips and perps and clients to talk to her, to stall, to tell her what she needed to know. She could do this. She could get out of this cell and out of this fuckery and take her son--

Her _son_ , who had been in the car with her when she’d gone off the road--oh, _shit,_ this was why she could never be a mother; where was her son, was he ok, who had him, all of the questions she should have had on repeat from the instant she’d regained consciousness were on a loop in her head as she tried to maintain her composure in front of Cora. The fucking _Queen of Hearts_.

Emma didn’t even know how long she’d been in this cell.

“You get off on this,” Emma said. “This is the part that you like, the control and the power trip--”

But Cora knew. The bitch could tell, could see it in her eyes or some shit, because she laughed.

Again.

“The Savior,” Cora said, drawing out the word in what was unmistakably a gloat. “But all you are, child, is a name on a piece of paper, did you know that? Did you know that Rumplestiltskin mapped out your life before you were even born?”

Emma wanted to laugh at that--to laugh, or to cry, because there was absolutely no one in this world who could have predicted the path that her life had taken to lead her to this moment. She had made her own choices, and had to live with her own mistakes, but no one was going to tell her who she was.

Only--

Henry would tell her to be a hero.

“You’re not powerful,” Cora said. “You’re a pawn, which is exactly why you are here. You’re the Savior because it was all part of the plan.”

_“You’re only a pawn if you don’t know you’re being played.”_

“This is the part where you tell me what you need, right?” Emma said.

“I need to be close to my daughter again,” Cora said simply. “You and this curse are currently the only things in the way of that.”

Emma barely flickered her eyes toward Hook before she punched back, a sudden flash of insight becoming clear to her. “What about the dagger, then?”

“The what?” Cora asked. She hadn’t even batted an eye, but Cora wasn’t the only one who could read people. Emma had gotten to her. Behind Cora, Hook shifted his weight, holding Emma’s gaze for just a split second with a barely-perceptible nod of his head.

_Try something new, darling._

“Rumplestiltskin’s dagger,” Emma said, quietly enough that Cora needed to step closer. “That’s what you really want, isn’t it? The power? I wonder, _Cora dear_ , what your grudge against the Dark One might be?”

That had to be it, Emma knew, otherwise Cora would be holed up with Gold, plotting to do whatever the fuck it was that people who wanted to break goddamn _curses_ did. Bad blood there for sure, Emma decided, and knew she’d hit her mark because Cora’s expression changed. She was a handsome woman, but the glare she leveled at Emma could probably turn things into stone.

 _If_ Emma believed in magic. Or daggers, or Rumplestiltskin, or one-handed pirates with sinful eyelashes who couldn’t keep their own personal space; who read her like a goddamn book, who told her secrets in the dark that made her feel seen and understood and made her wonder, in all of those times they’d been inches apart, what it would feel like if there was no space between them at all.

But she didn’t. She didn’t believe in any of it.

_Liar._

“Listen,” Emma said, leaning forward. “You should know that I don’t have any fucks to give about this fight. I don’t give a shit about plans or saviors or curses. I’m just trying to get justice for my partner, and to _move the fuck on_ with my life.”

Emma did not look at Killian as she spoke. She meant it--she meant all of it.

_Liar._

Cora’s eyebrows narrowed; she was clearly unimpressed. Definitely another expression Regina had learned from her mother.

Which was fine--Emma almost had the lock open, anyway.

“I’m not like him,” Emma said, gesturing with her chin at Hook. “I don’t have any grand delusions about my life or its purpose. You let me out, let me go on my way, and I will tell you where your precious fucking dagger is. Or I will see you behind these bars, _Your Majesty_.”

Emma pushed the door open and stepped out.

Cora laughed for the third time. It was refined, and practiced, and unpleasant, and all of the hairs on the back of Emma’s neck were standing on edge.

“You’re going to tell me,” Cora said, “or he is. I’ve been waiting twenty-eight years for this.”

Hook interjected then. “I’ve been waiting a hell of a lot longer than that, Your Majesty.”

“So pretty,” Cora sighed, “and yet so useless. You can hardly blame me, Hook, for your failure to seize the--how did you put it? The opportune moment. I told you, Hook--”

Cora moved, and Emma attempted to dodge.

She was unsuccessful.

“You chose her. Now, there will be consequences.”

And then all there was--was pain. Her body, about to split open--her lungs feeling like there could not possibly be enough air in the universe. The feeling of something closing in around her heart.

Crushing it--

\--or trying to.

Emma could feel it, Cora’s hand actually _inside_ of her body, and the violation of it all--the physical intimacy, for Cora to be that close and to have her _fucking_ hand inside of Emma’s body--was almost as bad as the literal physical pain. Which was overwhelming.

Until it wasn’t.

Killian had Cora in a headlock, his hook against her neck. “Let. Her. Go.” Each word was its own sentence, snarled directly into Cora’s ear, and Emma could feel him pulling Cora away from her in the way that Cora did not let go of her heart.

Her _fucking_ heart.

“Don’t you know, Hook?” Cora gasped. “Love is weakness.” Her grip tightened, and she pulled.

Like she was trying to pull Emma’s heart straight out of her body, and this was it, this was what had happened to Graham, this was how he had felt in the moments before he had died, like his body was exploding and collapsing in on itself all at the same time, in horrifying, indescribable agony--

 _“I died a free man, Emma_. _”_

Only--

There was a burst of white light, and Cora hissed in pain. Her arm, her hand, stopped moving, and Emma could take a breath again as Cora sagged against Hook, who had not released her from his grip. His face was devoid of any emotion but his eyes were icy chips of pure rage as he pulled her bodily away from Emma, who doubled over the moment Cora’s hand left her chest, heaving breaths and swallowing the bile that bubbled up in her throat.

“What was that?” Emma said. Her words came in raspy syllables.

“That,” Hook said, and his voice made his face seem expressive, “was Cora’s final mistake.”

And it really wasn’t fair, Emma thought--later, much later--that for all of her wishing to know what was happening, _what the actual fuck_ was happening, and where was her son--Henry burst through the door, tailed immediately by Regina as she harangued David, who was pulling a bewildered Mary Margaret along with him--as Killian dug the tip of his namesake gently into the delicate skin along Cora’s neck, and she gave a horrifying _shudder_.

So much for not believing in magic.

“Mother?” Regina said, rushing up behind Cora and catching her as Killian let her fall. “Mother? What’s wrong?”


	10. Chapter 10

Betamax.

The CCTV in the station was fucking Betamax, because of course it was.

How was that even plausible? How did a person even wire CCTV into a Betamax and then keep it running, for twenty-eight years?

How had _no one_ ever noticed how completely ridiculous that was?

_Magic._

And that might have been it, might have been the factor that finally pushed Emma over the edge, laughing somewhere on the knife blade between humor and hysteria as she watched the footage from her holding cell, her same one, the one where David had locked her back up the instant he walked in and saw a woman dying on the ground of his station and a man with a weapon and obvious intent standing over her.

Well, he locked Killian in first--then Emma--then there was the issue of Mary Margaret.

Emma still wasn’t sure why Mary Margaret was even in the station, not when Regina was too busy screaming--or as close to it as she ever came--which seemed to be, just, really fucking angry. Her eyes were doing that thing, where she looked like she might shoot fire out of them, and for the first time Emma wondered if maybe she could, if that was actually possible, because someone had just tried to pull her fucking heart from her fucking body.

And Hook--Killian--had--

“What did you do?” Regina demanded.

Which--it was a good question, and Emma kind of wanted to know, too, not the why of it, exactly, but the how, that and why Mary Margaret was in the holding cell next to her and if she could ever help Henry lose that look he had in his eyes now, watching Cora try to kill her on Betamax in all of its black-and-white glory.

Emma’s breathing still hadn’t completely recovered from--that. Her head was still spinning.

It had been one hell of a night.

“It’s dreamshade,” Killian said.

“That’s just a myth,” Regina said, and if Killian’s expression had been dark before--well. Maybe _his_ eyes would shoot fire, because he sure as shit looked like he wanted to lay Regina out right alongside her mother.

Henry spoke up, almost indignant on Killian’s behalf. “It’s _not_ ,” he said, “it’s in the book. It’s the deadliest poison in--” He stopped suddenly, as though he only just realized who he was talking to; the look he gave Killian was almost apologetic. There was a part of Emma that wanted to smile, at the protective instincts of this kid who was somehow hers, and how fiercely he believed. Emma remembered the story, too, the one in the book where Hook’s brother had been killed by a poisonous plant from Neverland--which was a place, a real place, where dreamshade grew. The deadliest poison in all of ‘the realms.’ Plural. How many were there, exactly?

Killian had just killed the Queen of Hearts with a plant from Neverland after they had used a magic curse to travel from an Enchanted Forest, so at least three, Emma decided, only because it was easier than contemplating the fact that the Queen of Hearts had tried to steal Emma’s heart out of her body, and been repelled by _actual_ magic powers. That Emma had.

_Fuck._ This really was her life.

“The book?” Regina asked, but Henry just glared at her, refusing to answer, refusing to let Regina even touch him as he edged himself closer to Emma, and to Killian.

They watched the video three times.

“Is she--” Mary Margaret interjected, looking pale and gesturing at Cora, who was breathing heavily and barely conscious where Regina still held her. “Is she--going to be okay?”

“No,” Killian said. “She’s not.” He sounded satisfied, and Emma couldn’t find it within herself to be upset about it, either.

“Are you okay?” Mary Margaret asked, directing her question at Emma that time. Emma allowed herself one more long breath before she nodded.

Killian hadn’t asked. He’d barely looked at her. He looked--unsettled. Confused, even. When they did make eye contact, his expression was a cipher. It was the first time, Emma realized, that she literally had no idea what he was thinking. It wasn’t a mask. He just looked--lost.

“Sheriff Nolan,” Henry was insistent, literally tugging on the man’s shirt, “Grandpa, you have to let Emma go, so she can break the curse.”

There was a second of silence, and then David and Regina spoke at the same time.

“Why would you call me ‘grandpa’?”

“What curse?”

David sounded curious, as well he might.

Regina did not sound curious. She was suspicious, and angry.

“Ah,” a voice, accented and sounding pleased, came from the doorway. “What a delightful family reunion.”

Killian snorted.

Mr. Gold--Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, _whatever_ , leaned on his walking stick as he took in the scene around him with a small smile and an obvious air of pure satisfaction.

“You,” Regina snarled, standing up. “You did this. You stole her life, cast some spell--”

“I?” It was one letter. Emma didn’t know one letter could carry so much malice. “I did nothing.”

“Somebody should call an ambulance,” Mary Margaret said, and it had to be the fourth or fifth time she had said it, if Emma’d had the presence of mind to keep count. It didn’t matter; no one was listening.

There was nothing they could do, anyway. Not against the deadliest poison in all the realms.

“You should be thanking me, crocodile,” Killian said bitterly. “I did your dirty work for you. But I sense that somehow you are not surprised.”

“On the contrary, Hook,” Gold was cheerful. “Believe me when I tell you that I am _quite_ pleased at the level of your devotion to Miss Swan. More than you could possibly know.”

Killian’s silence spoke volumes, and Emma inhaled.

_“For more years than you can imagine, I offered a black heart or an ugly death to everyone that I met, and I did it with a song in my heart--without conscience, and without remorse, because I had been done wrong.”_

Because of Milah--his True Love. And Emma knew, suddenly, that the poison he’d so conveniently had with him--had been meant for Gold.

Not Cora.

Not initially.

But he’d brought it to the station, armed himself with it, because he thought Emma might need the protection.

_“If you do not succeed in breaking the curse on your own, killing you breaks the curse just as well as anything else.”_

But it had been the same expression on his face, Emma realized, the lost one, the one he wore now.

_“Milah wouldn’t have wanted this,”_ he’d said.  
_“I would have done anything for her.”_

_“You’ve changed,”_ Emma had said.  
_“You’ve helped me when you didn’t need to, and whatever your reasons are--”_

_“My reasons are my own.”_

And it wasn’t the expression she was so used to seeing in her own mirror. It was the look of someone who had found something they hadn’t even been searching for.

_“You,”_ he’d said.

Gold smirked; in the space between his lips, his tooth glinted. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is that the look of a believer, Miss Swan?”

“I know what you did to your wife,” Emma said. “I know that you did all of this.”

“Do you,” Gold said, giggling.

“Emma?” Henry said, pushing his small hand through the bars. “Is that true? Do you believe?”

“Yes,” Emma whispered. But it wasn’t Henry she watched as she said it.

It wasn’t Killian, either, though she could feel his eyes on her.

It was Regina. “And I know,” Emma continued, “that Cora helped you.”

Cora laughed. It was a strange, strangled sound.

“Mother?” Regina said. “What’s wrong?”

“Your mother did you no favors, Your Majesty,” Gold said. “Not after she broke our deal.” He stepped, finally, into the room, and toward Cora. “A vision told me about you,” he said, “told me that this day would come. But it didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know.” With some difficulty, he maneuvered himself down to the floor, and whispered something into Cora’s ear.

She stroked the side of his face, and whispered back, and all Emma could see was the color draining from Regina’s skin, and Emma knew.

_“Cora and the crocodile are old allies; Regina and Cora are old foes.”  
_ _“They want the curse broken and will likely take any means that present themselves in order to affect that result.”_

Gold and Cora. A broken deal. Gold’s curse, which Cora knew all about--and the way they had clearly _not_ been working together on its enactment.

Regina, who cast the curse.

_“You’re only a pawn if you don’t know you’re being played.”_

Regina hadn’t known.

\--

David let Hook out of the cell long enough to help him move the body, and to cover it up with a spare deputy’s jacket.

Emma still wasn’t upset about it, if she was being honest.

But she did tell Henry not to look.

(Too late.)

\--

Regina tried to leave, but David wouldn’t let her. “You’re here to make a statement against Mary Margaret,” he said.

“Well, get _him_ out of here, at least,” Regina ordered, gesturing imperiously at Gold.

“I can’t,” David said, and Emma was surprised by the flash of impatience in his normally passive expression.

“You can’t,” Regina repeated, and Emma could tell that Regina was surprised, too.

“He’s Mary Margaret’s legal representation,” David said.

“You’re _what_?” Regina and Emma exclaimed.

“What did she do, anyway?” Emma asked.

Her _mother_. Her _father._ Her _parents._

She had _parents_.

“She killed Kathryn Nolan,” Regina said, and Emma had to imagine that in other circumstances, this would have been a major victory--but for the body under the jacket, at least.

Prince Charming was arresting Snow White, his mistress, for the murder of his wife. It did have a certain irony to it.

Killian snorted again, apparently sharing Emma’s train of thought. “Well done, Your Majesty,” he said.

“A weapon was found in your apartment,” David said to Emma. “There was blood on it that matched Kathryn’s. Mary Margaret had no alibi.”

Emma looked from Mary Margaret, to Regina, to David. “You asshole,” she said, pointing her finger at him. “You believe it, don’t you?”

David hesitated. “Look, it’s this situation,” he said. “It’s been confusing and horrible for everyone. But, Emma, I don’t think she’s guilty.”

He wasn’t lying--that much Emma could tell. But there was something there. Emma thought back to the other morning; his vacant expression and his aimless wandering, “I’m looking,” he’d said.

_“She’s missing, but I will find her."  
"I will always find her.” _

The curse.

It was the curse.

Something in David was fighting against it, pushing back against the magic.

_“Your curse is weakening."_   
“ _All curses can be broken.”_

“She doesn’t need your words of encouragement right now, Sheriff,” Regina said.

“She needs her attorney,” Gold said, his smile widening when Regina glared at him.

“What did I ever do to you, anyway,” Mary Margaret said, “that you would take so much pleasure in this? Why do you hate me so much?”

Henry walked right up against the bars, wrapping each hand around one, and leveling Mary Margaret with a very serious look. “Grandma,” he said, “I need you to listen to me.”

If everything wasn’t so fucked up, it would have been funny, the earnest frustration in Henry’s small, childish voice.

“Grandma?” Mary Margaret whispered.

“You’re _Snow White_ ,” he said seriously. “She blames you for the death of her True Love. It’s all because she wanted to take away your happiness. That’s why you’re here.”

“Henry,” Mary Margaret said, something pleading in her tone. “Emma and I--we’re the same age--”

She looked at David, who couldn’t quite meet her eyes, and then at Emma, who smiled. Or tried to.

“Because she made time stop,” Henry insisted. “It was part of the curse.”

Mary Margaret sighed, shaking her head, and looked at Emma again. Emma shrugged.

“Hook has owned The Rabbit Hole for twenty-eight years,” Emma said. “Graham looked it up. I have the records.”

Mary Margaret opened her mouth, as if she was going to say something, and then closed it again. “Emma?” she said. Something in her voice had changed; it was like something was struggling to break through.

Just like David.

Emma reached a hand through the bars toward her friend--toward her mother--and Mary Margaret gasped.

She was looking at Emma’s tattoo.

Maybe--maybe if Emma could get them to _remember_ \--

Emma took a deep breath. “Magic is real,” she said, gesturing at the television screen, still paused with Cora’s hand deep within her chest. “Cora used it to try and kill me. To try and break the curse.” She could see Mary Margaret struggling to process it--wanting to trust her friend and roommate, her _daughter_ , but she didn’t know how.

“The stories in Henry’s book are true,” Emma said. “All of them.”

That was the first time Emma had said that out loud.

“The stories,” Mary Margaret repeated. “Like the story that Hook told us in the bar?”

“What stories?” Regina said. “What were you telling my son?”

“Merely the truth, Regina,” Killian said.

“Henry?” Regina asked. “Do you think I’m some kind of...Evil Queen?”

Henry was silent, his eyes defiant.

“I’m your mother,” Regina said.

“No,” Henry said. “You’re not. Emma’s my mom.”

_Mom_. The word hit Emma as though her car had swerved off the road all over again. _Mom._

That was the first time Henry had ever called her that.

“She’s the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming,” Henry said stubbornly. “And the product of True Love. _And_ she is going to break the curse.”

And that was when Emma realized--

“Who said anything about an Evil Queen, _Your Majesty_?” Emma said, eyebrows raised.

Regina’s eyes widened.

But only for a second.

“This is ridiculous,” she snapped, turning away. “Henry, you’re coming home with me. You should know, Sheriff, that I am going to phone District Attorney Spencer about your handling of this issue. I’m not going to sit here and listen to Jones, a known murderer, spout tales about magic in front of my son--”

Killian laughed. It was a singularly unpleasant sound.

“Who’s ‘Jones’?” Mary Margaret asked tentatively.

Killian smiled--the tight, small kind that didn’t show any teeth. “Killian Jones, milady,” he said. “At your service.”

When Emma looked at him, she could still see the blood on the tip of his hook, but his eyes were clear and his anger was focused.

On Regina.

“Which murder would that be, Regina? The one you hired me for twenty-eight years ago? The one that bought my passage to this world?”

He moved to stand, to walk toward her as if he could make the bars disappear, and Emma put her hand on his arm, letting it fall down to his wrist. She felt him, she _felt_ his reaction to the contact, the way his breathing hitched, and she didn’t--

She didn’t know, exactly, what she was trying to tell him.

_Any port in a storm._

Maybe this time, there didn’t have to be a storm. Maybe, if her parents remembered, they could all--

_Be a part of something._

Gold smiled again, and giggled, and Emma froze at the sound, that _fucking_ sound that had haunted her dreams since Graham had died. “Oooooh,” he said, and it was very nearly a song. It made Emma’s stomach flip, the sheer glee in his voice, and she pulled her hand back. “I had no idea, pirate, that keeping you alive all of these years would prove not only useful, but entertaining as well.”

“How many years, exactly?” Mary Margaret said.

“Several hundred,” Killian said succinctly, keeping his attention on Gold.

“One might go so far as to say that he’s my oldest friend,” Gold said, and giggled at Killian’s scowl.

Emma couldn’t help but feel that they were having an entirely different conversation, the two men. There was a _lot_ of history there, after all.

_“The crocodile ripped her heart out while he made me watch.”  
_ _“This man has an unfortunate habit of taking what is mine.”_

“I’m flattered, crocodile,” Killian said finally, “but I could just as easily say the same about you. Or hadn’t you realized that the boy is your grandson, every bit as much as Snow’s?”

It hung in the air like an accusation rather than a fact, taking on shape and weight as it enveloped the room. Perhaps predictably, Henry was the first to speak up.

“Wait,” he said, and he was somehow so damn hopeful that Emma’s already-full, recently-stolen heart wanted to burst into a different kind of white light. “You knew my dad?” His eyes were round and bright and he had a kind of half-smile on his face--

Emma heard the change in his breathing; she knew the instant Gold saw it, too.

_“You could have just asked me for the keys.”_

Neal’s smile.

“Yes, lad,” Killian said gently. “I knew your father.”

_“One day, we were going to go back for him.”  
__“The boy who would have been_ my _son, if I had had the strength to let him in.”_

“Several hundred years,” Mary Margaret repeated. “That’s not--it isn’t--”

“That’s not possible,” David said.

Every trace of amusement was gone from Gold’s expression. “Baelfire?”

Emma didn’t answer.

“You knew Baelfire?”

“Mom?”

_Mom._ She knelt down in the cell, and smiled at her son through the bars.

“I can make you tell me, Miss Swan,” Gold said.

“You don’t have magic here,” Emma said.

Gold sucked in a breath and glared at her.

“I thought all of this was part of your big, elaborate plan, Gold,” Emma said. “The one to use Regina to cast your curse, and now you’re telling me this is all some kind of coincidence?”

“There are no coincidences,” Gold said. “Everything that happens, happens by design.”

“He can see the future,” Henry explained.

“Maybe,” Emma said. “But I don’t think he saw this coming, kid.” She stood up just as Gold and Henry spoke, their words coming on top of one another’s.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, kid,” Emma said, focusing only on Henry. “I really don’t. Things got--complicated. He left me, and I had you, and I--”

“I know,” Henry said. “You wanted to give me my best chance.”

“Yeah,” Emma said.

“You had him in _prison_ , Miss Swan,” Regina said, cutting in.

“Is that true, Emma?” Mary Margaret’s voice held only sympathy, and Emma shut her eyes, just for a minute, at the pure _motherly_ concern. She nodded, and felt the brush of Killian’s hand on her shoulder.

“But you found each other,” David said, speaking so quietly that Emma almost didn’t hear him.

_“I’ll find you. I will always find you.”  
_ _“You’re so much like her, you know.”_

The question ran through her mind before Emma could even process it--did David mean she and _Killian_ had found each other, like in the book?

_True Love is the rarest magic of all._

But then she realized what he’d meant.

Henry.

“Henry is _my_ son,” Regina said, looking only at Gold. “You’re the one that brought him to me. You arranged his adoption.”

“I needed the Savior to come,” Gold said.

“Yeah,” Emma said, “but that’s not what happened, is it? I came here on my own. I found a job on my own. I had a _life_ , on my own, at least until you killed my partner.”

_“You’re the Savior because it was all part of the plan._ ”  
_"Rumplestiltskin mapped out your life before you were even born.”_

Only--Gold arranged the adoption.

And finding Graham--and Ruby and Mary Margaret--her job and her life, it had been like coming home.

“And look at what you’ve accomplished since then, Miss Swan,” Gold said. “You’ve found your son, and your parents, and a pirate who pines for you. You might even say that I did you a favor.”

“You killed Graham?” Regina said.

“ _You_ killed him, Your Majesty,” Gold sneered. “I just saw to it that he finally died.”

Regina’s face, already pale with grief and contorted with anger, was nearly white. The look in her eyes, Emma realized, was fear--fear mixed with impatience as she looked at her watch, looked up at the scene before her, and checked it again.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, “are we taking longer than you accounted for when you decided to railroad my best friend?”

My _mother_ , Emma didn’t say.

“Is Kathryn even missing, by the way,” she continued, “or did you do that, too?”

Killian chuckled. “Got it in one, Swan,” he said. “Regina’s not going to let all of her hard work burn, is she?”

There was a knock at the door, and Emma jumped.

“Calm down,” David said. “It’s just the lunch I had sent up.”

\--

It felt like it happened in a second.

Maybe less.

But in retrospect, as she stood there staring at Killian’s lifeless body on the floor of the station, it was more like a slow-motion trainwreck.

(Killian would have had a Shakespearean reference on the tip of his tongue, something sad and depressing but also beautiful. He would quote it, and she would roll her eyes, and he would explain it and wink and she thought it annoyed her but really--she kind of liked it.)  
(She liked him.)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  _It felt like it happened in a second._   
>  _Maybe less._   
>  **
> 
> **_But in retrospect, as she stood there staring at Killian’s lifeless body on the floor of the station, it was more like a slow-motion trainwreck._**
> 
> _**(Killian would have had a Shakespearean reference on the tip of his tongue, something sad and depressing but also beautiful. He would quote it, and she would roll her eyes, and he would explain it and wink and she thought it annoyed her but really--she kind of liked it.)  
>   
>  (She liked him.)  
> **_

“Hey, Leroy,” David called, “I didn’t order this apple turnover.”

“Do I look like I care?”

\--

It’s not that she hadn’t noticed Gold’s comment.

_A pirate who pines for you._

Or Cora’s.

_Love is weakness._

It’s just--there was a lot going on, and Emma thought--maybe if she could just get her parents to _remember_ , somehow, that would help her figure out the whole curse situation.

(She hadn’t noticed.)  
(She _hadn’t_ noticed.)

\--

Henry said: “Wait, Grandpa, did you say apple?”

And looked at Killian.

And then at Emma.

And then back at Killian.

\--

“It’s a trick,” Henry said. “As long as she’s alive, Emma is a threat to the curse.”

“Henry,” Regina said, “You’ve got to stop thinking like this. I’m your mother and I love you.”

“It’s my usual order from Granny’s, Henry. Nothing sinister.” David’s smile was persuasive and warm.

Charming, even.

“I’m very grateful to you, mate,” Killian said, “that you left off the bologna this time.”

\--

Emma couldn’t see the future.

But Gold could, he claimed, and this, _this_ \--it was impossible, but he had somehow planned for _exactly_ this.

 _“I’m_ quite _pleased at the level of your devotion to Miss Swan. More than you could possibly know.”_

\--

It had been there, buried in the layers of conversation between the two men; in the _history_ that they were excavating with each word.

“She’s the mother to your grandson.”

“I need Miss Swan. Surely _you_ understand that.”

“You get what you wanted either way, don’t you, crocodile?”

“I’m a man who likes to plan for any contingency.”

“And when it doesn’t work?”

“It matters not. It might even add a little fuel to the fire.”

(Emma had missed it.)  
(Emma had missed all of it.)

\--

Henry said: “You can’t eat that. It’s poison.”

It was _pastry_ , Emma thought, but Killian--

He just _looked_ at Henry, and she didn’t know she knew it, knew that Killian was looking at her kid and seeing the boy he had loved two hundred years ago when he said: “It’s going to be fine, lad. Your mother is going to be safe.”

(She knew it because she _knew_ him.)  
(Open book.)

\--

His eyes were on the chain.

Emma hadn’t even realized she was clutching it. Again.

 _“I think it might be the reason I’m still alive,_ ” he’d said.

“Get Lacey,” he said. Killian’s lips were barely moving, his voice so low that only she could hear it. “Bring her here.”

“What?” Emma said. “When--?”

“For once, please,” he said, “just do as I ask, Swan. Promise me.”

\--

Apples.

The apple tree was dying.

_“If you do not succeed in breaking the curse on your own, killing you breaks the curse just as well as anything else.”_

But Regina didn’t want the curse broken.

 _“I’ve found a solution to my Emma Swan problem_.”  
_“An old, reliable solution.”_

\--

Henry was up against the bars of the cell door, agitated and angry.

“Swan,” Killian said. “You weren’t wrong about me.”

(Henry had known.)  
(Emma should have known.)

\--

She _should_ have known.

It was there, in his expression, in the tilt of his head. It was the lost look in his eyes again, buttressed by something determined. And angry. And--

\--hopeful.

\--

 _“There’s hope, Swan.”  
_ _"All you have to do is believe.”_

\--

Killian reached for the pastry, picking it up off the tray.

Regina twitched--started to say something, opening her mouth and closing it again.

Gold giggled.

Something stirred in Mary Margaret. “It must be taken willingly,” she said.

Which was pretty fucking creepy.

And then--

Oh.

_Oh._

\--

_“Regina’s not going to let all of her hard work burn.”_

\--

It was just one bite.  
One. Bite.

\--

_Hook was on the floor, his eyes closed and his body unresponsive._

(And her dreams, her goddamned _dreams_ , she’d known this was coming, and yet--)  
(She hadn’t known.)  
(Not until it was too late.)

\--

Emma’s knees hit the ground almost before he did.

“KILLIAN!”

\--

_Hello, beautiful._

_I find I quite fancy you._

_I love a challenge._

_I haven’t lived a good life._

_I’m not much for loyalty._

_I was hoping it would be you._

_I believe in good form._

_I’m going to tell you a story._

_Everything you think you believe is wrong._

_Did I tell you a lie?_

_That’s the thing about revenge, you see: it’s an end, not a beginning._

_I don’t dance, anyway._

_We make quite the team._

_You should know as well as anyone that Lost Ones recognize their own._

_I am a man of honor._

_Milah wouldn’t have wanted this._

_My reasons are my own._

_A reminder to both of us._

_Don’t you know, Emma? It’s all for you._

_You weren’t wrong about me._

\--

The tray and its contents clattered to the floor, a mess all around her as David and Mary Margaret--her _parents_ \--startled at the noise, as Regina pulled Henry away.

“Killian,” Emma said. “Killian, can you hear me? Come on, Killian, come back to me.”

(He didn’t answer.)  
(Somehow, she _had_ known that he wouldn’t.)

\--

David unlocked the cell doors.

Fucking _finally_.

Mary Margaret came rushing in, her fingers jabbing uselessly at Killian’s wrists and neck for any indication of a pulse.

“He’s not dead,” Henry said, but he didn’t sound too certain, her son the Believer. “It’s just--”

“It’s a curse,” Emma said. She almost couldn’t make herself say the words, as she looked up at David, at _her father_ , and forced him to look her in the eyes.

“Help me get him up,” David muttered.

“Aren’t you a real Prince Charming,” Mary Margaret said, putting an arm around Emma’s shoulder.

\--

It was impossible to tell if he was breathing.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Miss Swan,” Gold said.

_Liar._

\--

Emma pushed Regina up against the wall, desperately wishing she had her gun. Or a pair of cuffs. “You did this,” she said.

“It was meant for _you_ ,” Regina said. But her smile, the sickening smile, suggested that she wasn’t entirely disappointed with the outcome.

“Wake. Him. Up.” Emma punctuated each word with a shove against the wall, only--

Regina laughed. “That’s not how the magic works, Miss Swan.”

\--

Emma was on the floor.

Her back up against the bars, her feet flat against the floor, and it kept her eyes level with his, and Henry was there, just--

“It’s going to be okay, Mom.”

Mary Margaret was holding her hand, stroking her thumb soothingly against Emma’s palm.

(Emma did _not_ get emotional over men.)

\--

“What--” Henry gulped. “What’s going to happen to him?”

But Emma remembered this part, the story where Snow White had eaten the apple. His body would be like a tomb, and he would be in there with nothing, nothing but--

“Dreams formed of your own regrets,” Mary Margaret said, and Emma nodded.

(God, Killian had _so many_ regrets.)

\--

“Wait,” Emma said, blinking away tears. _“What_ did you just say?”

“Nothing,” Mary Margaret said, but she had that look in her eyes, that far-away look, that haunted, _cursed_ look--

\--

 _“Just look at me,”_ he’d said, _“and believe.”_

\--

It was under the bed.

Emma was sure it hadn’t been there before.

Oversized brown leather binding with old-timey script.

_Once Upon A Time._

\--

When Emma reached for the book she _felt_ the power rushing through her, and she stood up.

It was time to end this.

“Henry,” she said. “I need you to go to The Rabbit Hole. Bring Lacey. _Run_.”

\--

 _All curses can be broken.  
_ _Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep._

_\--_

“He’s not dead.”

That’s what Emma said when Liam rushed into the room and looked around, his face pale and his eyes wide as they landed upon his brother.

“He’s not dead.”

Emma said it again as Lacey, resplendent as ever in her t-shirt-micromini-stilettoes combo, rushed in two steps behind Liam. She was saying it for them, but she was reminding herself, too.

She was reminding Henry, as well; Henry, who had refused to leave her. “I’m not leaving you.” That’s what he’d said when she told him to go, this small person she had helped create, who was somehow stronger than both of his parents combined. “I’m not leaving you here with _them_ ,” he’d said, biting back tears and pulling an old flip phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling, Henry” in Gold’s smoothed-over accent overlapped with “That phone is for emergencies only” in Regina’s acidic tone and Emma had snapped.

“I think this counts as a fucking emergency,” she said, somehow still clutching the storybook to her chest. _Once Upon a Time_. The rush of power, she could feel it on the edge of her consciousness, but it was something just out of her reach. She had no idea how to wake him up. How to wake any of them up. Mary Margaret and David--it was as if they were on the precipice of something, only Emma couldn’t push them the rest of the way.

“Mom,” Henry had said, “give me the book,” and then pulled it from her hands and gone to sit next to Mary Margaret.

He’d read her a story.

... _they didn’t need words to express what they felt in their hearts, for it was here, in the shadow of the troll bridge, where their love was born--where they knew, no matter how they were separated, they would always…_

Emma should have thought--should have realized--that Liam would come running just as quickly as Lacey would. In fact, it was probably Liam whom Henry had phoned; after all, they were friends. Liam was Hook’s brother.

_“Liam is not the first brother of mine to bear that name.”_

It was getting difficult to look at him, to look at Killian and to imagine what it must be like, to be trapped in a prison formed of his own regrets. But Emma also couldn’t look at Gold, who was watching Henry with something in his eyes that frightened her.

Neal was Gold’s son. Gold was Henry’s grandfather. Neal had known Hook, hundreds of years ago. Somehow, they had all ended up here--in a Land Without Magic.

Graham was dead. Gold had killed him over a dagger.

_“Baelfire saw it as the source of all of his problems and I saw in it the solution to all of mine.”_

It was Gold’s curse, and yet he had used Regina to cast it.

Had Gold--had he been _looking_ for Neal?

It made a twisted kind of sense, Emma decided, watching Gold watch her son. As for her own family tree, well--

No one spoke as Henry’s words bounced around the station, through the bars and off the concrete brick walls. “Whatever she did to you,” Henry said, “I know Snow White is in there somewhere.”

Something stirred in Emma at the words, and in David, too, and then--

Liam. And Lacey.

And Gold’s cane clattered as it hit the floor.

\--

Emma was shocked when Lacey came straight up to her and gave her a hug. “Is Jamie okay?”

Jamie--who the fuck was-- _oh_. Right. But also, why was this woman hugging her?

“Belle?” Gold’s words were breathy, broken and disbelieving in a way Emma had never heard from him before. In that brief moment, there was nothing reptilian about him; nothing that glinted or leered, nothing powerful or all-knowing. He was just a man, and he was looking at Lacey as though he had been in a desert and she was water, half-afraid that she was an hallucination, but even more afraid that she wasn’t.

_“You think the maid is some kind of chess piece?”  
_ _“Given the circumstances, it seemed wise to acquire some leverage.”  
_ _“She’s the only thing that can break him.”  
_ _“She’s my friend.”_

“You’re real,” Gold said. “You’re alive.” It was practically a whisper, one that Lacey acknowledged with a smile--the small, tight kind that showed no teeth as she stepped forward, bending to pick up the fallen cane.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do I know you?”

“No,” Gold said, accepting the cane from her. “But you will.”

Lacey cocked her head, looking at him, managing somehow not to look terrified at the prospect as the moment ended and Gold’s expression turned murderous and he growled, “Which of them?” His accent thickened as he glanced first at Regina, and then at Emma. “Which of them did this to her?”

Emma instinctively put herself between her landlord--her son’s grandfather, Rumplestiltskin, the fucking Dark One--and Hook. “Hook _rescued her_ , you asshole. From an _asylum_. Where Regina had her locked up for the past _twenty-eight years_.”

Regina hissed as Gold stiffened, and something like a shudder overcame Lacey. _Belle_. “Regina,” she said faintly. “Regina locked me up.” Her eyes--

Shit. She had that far-away cursed look, too. “I was told to find you, and tell you that Regina locked me up. Does that--does that mean anything to you?”

Gold moved, his arms outstretched, only something about the movement triggered the curse again as Belle--Lacey--snapped out of it.

“Lacey,” Liam called softly from inside the cell. Emma wanted to yell, to scream, there was no reason to be quiet--Killian couldn’t hear any of them, or any of _this_ , trapped in a tomb of his own regrets--but she couldn’t. Not when Liam was all long limbs and uncertainty as he hovered over his brother’s body, looking for the same signs of life Emma had tried--and failed--to find. Lacey gave Emma’s shoulder a squeeze, running her hand down Emma’s arm and gently pulling her into the cell with the brothers, and with Henry, who left the storybook on the floor as he stared up at Liam.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” Lacey said, also keeping her voice low in a way that made Emma want to scream. “Are you okay?”

Emma blinked. Lacey’s smile was sad but genuine. “I saw the two of you together,” she reminded Emma, “and Jamie told me about you. He said to bring you this if anything happened to him.” She dropped Emma’s arm and twisted, pulling the crossbody bag slung over her shoulder from her back to her front.

“He’s not dead,” Lacey muttered.

“He’s not,” Emma echoed. Then, “Do you even understand what is happening?”

“Emma,” Lacey said, “Do you?” She was holding something in her hand, about the length of her forearm, wrapped in paper. “But he trusts you. So I trust you.”

Emma took the parcel. She could feel the twisted blade inside, crinkling the paper as she gripped the handle. She turned so that Mary Margaret and David--her _parents_ \--couldn’t see it. They sat on the other side of the bars, almost frozen as they watched her with Henry, and with Liam, and with Lacey, the storybook still open in front of them on the concrete floor, an illustration of a minutes-old baby girl tucked into a hand-knitted blanket with purple trim covering both pages as a man shoved her into a wardrobe with the last breath in his body.

“How did this happen?” Liam asked.

Of course, _that_ he said loud enough to carry.

Regina smirked. “Miss Swan,” she said, “why don’t you explain to this young man why his brother is comatose and possibly dying, all because you put him in harm’s way?”

Because apparently, reading people at their worst was a family trait. But Cora was gone, dead by Killian’s hand in her defense, and Emma was not responsible for his choices.

She kept telling herself that, too.

Even though she should have known.

Even though her dreams had warned her.

Liam’s face fell, and Emma braced herself, wondering if anger was a family trait for the Jones men the same way it was for the Mills women. “You’re the one,” Liam said, “who got him--and got me--involved in all of this.”

“And if you had listened to me,” Regina said, “he might not be in this position. Miss Swan would have been long taken care of.”

“Listened to you?” And there it was, the flash of his elder brother, in the harshness of his consonants and the icy coolness of his rage. “You wanted me to spy on him, to tell you about _her_. But I know, Regina, what you did to him, and what you did me, and--”

Emma put her hand on his shoulder, an echo of Lacey’s gesture, in an attempt to give him comfort. “Liam,” she said, “you didn’t do this. As for you--” she directed her glare at Regina, grateful for anything to focus on beside the unmoving body mere feet away “--I’m locking you up.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Regina spat.

“Let’s see,” Emma said, pretending to think. “The sheriff is literally standing right next to you, so we could start with whatever the hell your game is with Kathryn Nolan. But we have so many other choices: you’ve committed false imprisonment, theft, and, of course, attempted murder--”

That’s when her voice caught.

Because Killian was there, unmoving, mere feet away.

Emma closed her eyes, so she heard instead of saw David push Regina into Mary Margaret’s cell; she didn’t open her eyes again until she also heard the door close and the lock click.

“I’m going to fix this,” Emma said. She said it for herself as much as for Liam, or for Lacey, or for Henry. She said it because she needed to hear it, too.

“It happened,” Henry said, “because your brother is a hero.” There was so much conviction in his voice--Emma could hear how much he wanted Liam to believe. “It happened because he didn’t want me to lose my mom, the way you lost your dad. He didn’t want to see another family broken up.” Lacey nodded, but Liam just shook his head and looked mournfully at Henry. “My mom is going to fix this,” he said. “I promise, Liam.”

Gold cleared his throat. His gold tooth was glinting again as he grinned, all traces of the human man with human emotions gone as he was every inch Hook’s crocodile once more.

“I wonder, Miss Swan,” he said. “What exactly do you intend to do about the magical ailment that has befallen my old friend? To fix it, as you say.”

Slowly, Emma advanced on him, emerging from the cell. The dagger--the Dark One’s dagger, the thing that Graham had fucking died for--was still in its wrappings, and his eyes followed her, and it, with speculation.

“All magic comes with a price, dearie,” Gold said.

“He shouldn’t have had to pay it,” Emma said. “Not this time.”

“That’s debatable,” Gold said, “but let’s agree to disagree, shall we?”

“Cut the bullshit, Gold,” Emma said. “You obviously think you still have a plan here, so what is it?”

“I, Miss Swan,” he said, “always have a plan.” Emma’s hand clenched around the dagger so tightly that she could feel the curved edges of the blade and wondered that she hadn’t cut herself yet. “If you had listened to me prior to the Captain’s unfortunate incident--” he gestured with the cane “--we might not have been in this position.”

Emma stared, waiting.

Finally, he said, “True Love. The only magic powerful enough to transcend realms and break any curse.”

Emma very carefully did _not_ look at Killian, but was still rewarded with another one of Gold’s giggles. “Luckily for you,” he said, “I happen to have bottled some.”

Regina stirred. “You did?” Her surprise was evident.

“Oh, yes,” Gold purred. “From strands of her parents’ hair, I made the most powerful potion in all the realms. So powerful, that when I created the Dark Curse, I placed a single drop on the parchment.” For the first time since Lacey had entered the station, Gold moved. Two slow, deliberate steps until he was standing directly in front of Regina, and he leaned forward. “Just a little safety valve,” he said. His cane tapped the bars for emphasis.

“You twisted little imp,” Regina said. “You--”

But Emma was finished with her--with all of it. “You still don’t get it, do you?” Emma said impatiently. “He planned _all_ of this, he and Cora, and it’s not about _you_ at all, or me, or any of us. We’re here because he _wanted_ us to be here. I’m the Savior so that I can break the curse--so that he can leave Storybrooke and go find his son.”

Emma tore the paper from the dagger and held it up by the handle, brandishing it at Gold. “Stop me if I’ve got this wrong,” Emma said. “But I’m not, am I? Neal ended up in Neverland _because of you_. He left me, pregnant and alone and in jail, _because of you_. He abandoned his son, your grandson. Because he was afraid of you. Because he _hated_ you.”

_“Tell me something, love. If a woman begs you to take her away, is that theft?”_

“She left you,” Emma whispered, “because she hated you.”

“Emma,” Lacey said, trying to pull at her arm. Emma shrugged her off, keeping her eyes on Gold. She wasn’t sure if it was the sound of Lacey’s voice or the sight of his _precious object_ , but a change had come over him. He looked--older, suddenly. Angry, and defiant, and--for the first time--scared.

He hadn’t planned for this.

The anger Emma felt bubbling up within her, the hatred, it was like nothing she had ever felt before. Not even when Neal had left--not even when she’d gone to prison--not even when she’d had to give up Henry. She pushed forward, walking toward him, crowding him, continuing her recitation: “And this? Your magical, mystical dagger. The source of all of your power, that you thought was hidden. The reason you killed Graham--but he was smarter than you gave him credit for. _Both_ of them were.”

Emma took the last step toward him, forcing him against the bars and holding the dagger almost against his neck. “And you?” she said. “You’re just a coward.”

There was nothing powerful about Gold, not then. Not with his own dagger pressed almost into his skin, the tip of it very nearly piercing his flesh--there was only fear. The thing might be a paperweight in this realm, in this Land Without Magic, but it was sharp as fuck and ready to cut.

“So tell me, crocodile,” Emma said, “what do you know of True Love?”

_True Love is the rarest magic of all._

And all Emma felt was fury--and how easy it would be to push the knife farther into his throat.

He was struggling against her as he spoke, but Emma had him completely pinned. Letters Emma hadn’t even noticed made themselves visible, spelling a name: Rumplestiltskin. It flashed for a second and then just as quickly began to fade away, one letter at a time beginning to disappear.

“You--” Lacey said. “You loved someone?”

Gold licked his lips. “It was a brief flicker of light amidst an ocean of darkness.”

That’s when Emma noticed the blood. He was bleeding from a wound she had made--

_“All magic comes with a price."  
_ _"The price of this magic is--unspeakable.”_

Emma’s grip faltered; her shoulders sagged and her head felt suddenly heavy.

“Mom,” Henry said, looking at her with pleading eyes. “Don’t. Please--don’t.”

_“Vengeance is tempting."  
"The darkness always is.”_

Emma turned, and she could feel them--the tears--burning at the edges of her eyes.

_“It creeps up in you. Resist it.”_

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said. “You can’t give in, or your life will be just like his. Bleak, and empty, and full of darkness. I gave Henry that book to give him hope.”

“Heroes do what’s right,” Henry said. “Not what’s easy.”

Something in Emma broke, as she suddenly felt everything, all of it--the grief, the anger, the helplessness, the sadness--all at once. She fell backward on unsteady feet, taking one step after another until her hands felt the wall behind her, and she sank to the floor.

Sobbing.

 _“Why couldn’t you?”_ she’d asked in her dream.  
_“I didn’t have anything to live for,”_ he said, _“to keep me on my path. Use whatever it takes to stay on yours."  
_

But what did Emma know about True Love? Nothing--less than nothing--less than the goddamn Dark One. She had been abandoned by her parents, or sent through a magical wardrobe; either way she had grown up alone. She had been abandoned by Neal and she, in turn, had given up her kid--afraid to let herself love Graham, afraid to love Mary Margaret, afraid to love Kil--

“Mom.” Henry was barely taller than her shoulder because of the way she was sitting. “You can do this, Mom. I believe in you.” Emma reached for him with the hand not still clutching the dagger, wrapping him in a hug and pulling him down to the floor next to her. Henry nestled into her side as if he had done it every day of his life and Emma instinctively shifted so that her head lay atop his.

Even after everything, his hair still smelled sweet and clean. It was the first time Emma had smelled it.

“Emma,” Mary Margaret said. Her friend--her _mother_ \--was kneeling on the floor in front of her, one hand on Emma’s knee, looking as though she was actually trying to restrain herself from pulling Emma into her arms.

“Mom,” Emma whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let you down.”

She hadn’t broken the curse. She had been attacked, kidnapped by a madman who had vanished into a magic hat and imprisoned by the fucking Queen of fucking Hearts. Graham was still dead. Killian was--gone.

What was she going to tell Liam?

What had any of it even been for?

Emma Swan wasn’t a savior.

Emma Swan wasn’t some fairy tale princess.

There were no fairy godmothers in this world.

“You didn’t, Emma, shhh,” Mary Margaret said. “I don’t care what you do or say, I will never stop trying to protect you, and you could never let me down.”

For the first time in her life, Emma let herself be gathered up and held by someone, by her best friend, by her _mother_.

“I love you, Emma,” Mary Margaret whispered, and Emma felt her mother’s kiss on the crown of her head.

_...And, yes, she was beyond hope. Beyond saving. This was her end. When Prince Charming saw his beloved Snow White in her glass coffin, he knew all that was left was to say goodbye. He had to give her one last kiss. And when he did, True Love proved more powerful than any curse. A pulse of pure love shuddered out and engulfed the land, waking up Snow White and bringing light to the darkness._


	12. Chapter 12

Emma exhaled a strangled gasp. She felt like she had been through a wringer--literally flattened and squeezed out until there was nothing left inside of her--and then a pulse of warmth and light had traveled through every part of her, like lightning pulling at her cells. The room around her seemed brighter and there was a quiet in Emma’s mind, peaceful and happy.

“What’s going on?” Regina asked. She sounded far away, her voice somewhere on the edge between suspicious and--what else--angry.

“That, Your Majesty,” Gold said, “was True Love’s Kiss.” He was all crocodile as he said it, his voice smooth and smug. When he smiled, it was not a pleasant expression.

“The curse,” Henry said. “Emma broke it.” He was smiling, and Emma grabbed him, squeezing him so tightly that he grunted, and there was a commotion all around them--

“Snow?”

“Charming?”

“EMMA!”

“She found us--”

“Did you ever doubt that she would?”

\--and Emma found herself wrapped up in an embrace that squeezed _her_ so tightly that she yelped in pain, being held by her mother and her father, her father’s hand cupped against the back of her head as he cradled her body in a group hug straight out of--well, a storybook.

“She saved everyone,” Henry said.

Mary Margaret’s--Snow White’s--hands cupped Emma’s cheeks. “I knew you would,” she said.

“Me?” Emma said. The peaceful feeling in her mind faded, just a bit. “I didn’t--”

“You did,” Snow insisted. David’s--Charming’s--hand was on her shoulder, rubbing the back of her neck. He couldn’t seem to move himself away from her, or from them.

“True Love’s Kiss only works,” he said, “if there is love and belief on both sides. And, Emma--I love you. _We_ love you _so_ much.”

“I just hope that now we can show you,” Snow said. She faltered for the first time as she said it, as though the weight of the better part of three decades was suddenly heavy on her mind.

“You believed,” Henry said. He was still smiling. “That’s what a hero does, Mom.”

“Henry,” Emma said, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom,” he said. Emma kissed him, hitting the crown of his head just like her mother had done--and she swore that, just for a second, she could feel that warmth pass through her again. The magic.

“Rumplestiltskin?” Lacey-- _Belle_ \--dropped her bag and walked to him, nearly hurling herself at him instead of taking the last step, stopping herself and reaching instead for his arm. Her hand found his on top of his walking stick as she said, “I remember.”

Emma tried to extricate herself from her family--her _family_ \--waiting for his voice and the way it would say something stupid like “Hey, beautiful.”

Belle repeated herself. “I remember.” She said the syllables slowly, as if she was feeling each one in her brain and in her mouth before she spoke them. “I love you.”

Gold was very nearly in tears as he hugged her small frame. “Yes,” he said. His voice almost broke. “Yes, and I love you too.”

Where was Killian?

“Mom,” Henry said--

“What’s wrong with my brother?” Liam said.

“There will be time for that, Belle,” Gold said, and the way he articulated the words reminded Emma of that first meeting in her office--the way he sounded as though he was tasting them--his voice full of relish. It was creepy, and it meant nothing good. “There will be time for everything.”

The “later” was implied, but Belle heard it all the same, because she backed away, and that’s when Emma realized: Killian was still unconscious, comatose--cursed--on the cell mattress. Unmoving and even paler than he had been.

Emma went back into the cell and winced as her knee hit the floor, wanting to trace her finger along his jawline and settling for rubbing her thumb against his wrist.

Gold clicked his tongue and smiled, clearly unsurprised. “Why,” he drawled, “Hook is still under the effects of the sleeping curse. Naturally.”

Emma’s fingers reflexively curled around the dagger she still held as she reacted to his voice. _Naturally_. But there was no way, no fucking way this had been part of his grand plan--

Liam went at Gold, a fist already raised, and Emma grabbed his arm just as he tried to strike. She came up behind him and pulled him back. “Liam, no,” she said. “Not that I don’t applaud your initiative or anything, but--”

Liam glanced back at his brother. “He wouldn’t want this, would he?” He seemed to deflate slightly as he said it.

“No, kid,” Emma said. “He wouldn’t.”

Regina laughed. It was, truly, more of a snarl. “How do you feel about your brother now, Mr. Jones?”

And--dammit--Regina had read him correctly, because Liam flushed.

“I love him,” Liam said--insisted. “He has raised me as his brother with love and kindness for almost thirty years. He is my family, and I love him.”

“Perhaps,” Gold said. “But that anger and betrayal you still carry means that you cannot wake him. It must be her.” He lifted the tip of his cane two inches off the ground and used it to indicate Emma.

“Wait,” David--Charming--said. “Wait, is that _Captain Hook_?” His mouth opened to say more and--

“Charming,” Snow said, “now is not the time.”

Charming gave her a look that was fond but somehow grudging at the same time and Emma’s heart clenched at the affection there.

“I still have the bottle, Miss Swan,” Gold said. “I can offer you a deal.” The cane moved again, this time pointing at the dagger still in her hand.

He was calm, and he was composed.

But Emma could sense something beneath the layers. _Liar._ He was scrambling, Emma realized. His plan had failed, his grand big plan of several centuries was over, and there was still something he needed--something he wanted her to do, in exchange for the dagger.

Emma was not going to fall into his trap, or be ensnared in any more of his deals.

They would find another way.

They had to.

“No,” Emma said. “No, I’ve had enough of your bullshit, Gold, and don’t think for one minute that just because your magic curse grand plan didn’t work out I am not throwing your ass in jail for murdering Graham. You still killed someone, buddy, and in this world, that has consequences.”

Graham had died for this blade; Killian had crossed realms and time and still balked at using it. No way in hell was she giving it back to the Dark One.

Belle gasped. “You killed Graham?” She looked from Gold to Killian and back again. “This was all part of one of your plans? You knew this--” she gestured at Killian, dropping Gold’s arm “--was going to happen? Because Hook came for me in the asylum. He gave me a home. He was my friend.”

“He also tried to kill you,” Regina said. Gold growled.

“You locked me up and took away thirty years of my life,” Belle said, all five-foot-nothing of her with hackles up as she faced the queen. “He gave it back to me. I think--I think he changed.”

_“Only I was given a gift: To wake up, for twenty-eight years, and not dread the day before it began"  
"...a life, and friends, and lovers, and none of it was real.”_

“He did,” Emma said. She caught Belle’s gaze and held it as she said it again. “He did change, Belle. He _is_ your friend.”

Belle’s expression looked suddenly very far away again, but not cursed; it was as if she was concentrating, searching through a mental catalogue of something until she found the answer.

“This is about the magic,” she said. She looked up at Gold. “Isn’t it? That’s what you meant when you said there would be time for everything _later_.”

Belle reached for Gold’s arm again. “Swear to me on your son’s life that this isn’t about the magic and I will believe you.”

Gold said nothing.

“Rumple,” Belle said, and she was pleading. “Swear to me. I will believe you. I still love you.”

Gold looked away.

Belle looked at Emma. “You said this was about Bae, and you weren’t wrong,” she said. “But in order to find Bae, he must need a tracking spell. And that means magic. That’s what he wants.”

“How would he bring magic to this world?” Snow White asked.

“There’s a lake,” she said. “In our land, we called it Lake Nostos. It has the power to restore--”

“What’s been lost,” David said. Charming. Whatever. “I’ve seen it. I’ve been there.”

“Assuming that everything in our land has a corollary here, there must be a well nearby that connects to the lake.”

“The wishing well,” Henry said. “It’s in the park just on the edge of Storybrooke.”

“That’s what he wants,” Belle said. “The potion must allow the waters of Lake Nostos to have power here. That’s how he planned to do it. Emma--you can’t let him. It’s wrong. And--”

“Hook wouldn’t want this,” Emma said. “I know. I won’t.”

She repeated to herself, almost like a mantra: they would find another way. They had to.

Emma stood beside her parents, her arms crossed over her chest, the dagger still in one hand.

David looked like he suddenly remembered something as he reached for his belt--the cuff clip he wore there. He handed the cuffs and the keys to Liam and said, “Cuff him.”

“Try it, dearie,” he said. “I’ve been imprisoned before.”

“There’s no magic here, Dark One,” David said. “And there won’t be. I think we’ll be able to hold you this time.”

“No deals,” Snow said firmly.

“Emma can do this,” Henry said.

“I--” Emma said.

“Emma,” Snow said. “We believe in you. So did Hook. That curse only works if you take it willingly. He wanted to save you, and to save Henry. He believed in you.” Her eyes were only on Emma, and on Killian. Her eyes with nothing but warmth and compassion and understanding and Emma had no idea what she was meant to do, or how she was meant to do it. “You know what you need to do, Emma.”

She didn’t. She fingered the ring around her neck and felt hopeless.

“I’m not okay with this,” her father grumbled, then grunted when her mother elbowed him.

“Mom,” Henry said in a loud stage whisper. “You have to kiss him. That’s how the curse works.”

Snow smothered a laugh.

“But--” Emma said. “He has--had--I’m not--”

_My Milah.  
My dead lover.  
She knew I was motivated.  
Any port in a storm._

Emma stood motionless.

“Oh, dear,” Gold giggled. “Has the good captain infected you with his ghosts?”

Emma stiffened.

_“Milah wouldn’t have wanted this. I would have done anything for her, but she wouldn’t have wanted this.”  
_ _Think therefore on revenge, and cease to weep._

“He always did favor brunettes,” Gold said. He was taunting her, he wanted to make her doubt, and it should have worked--hell, five minutes ago, it would have worked; five days ago, it felt like, she hadn’t even met him yet, or Killian, and yet--

Emma closed her eyes and could feel it, the way his breath warmed her skin when they were close together, when he had been so close to her; she could feel it, the way it had been in his office, in Jefferson’s house--that moment between ‘what was’ and ‘what’s next’--and she _wondered._

He had loved Milah. But-- _”It’s you. Don’t you know, Emma? It’s all for you”--_ and in her dream, it had been an inferno, the magic pushing everywhere in her body, the silver strands of light burning through her.

They’d known each other for five days.

But those moments still felt worth fighting for. She couldn’t lose him before she’d even had the chance to know him, or to know what it was that tied them together.

She already wasn’t the same person she had been before they’d met.

_You should know better than anyone that Lost Ones recognize their own._

And she wondered.

_“There’s hope, Swan. All you have to do is believe.”_

What would it be like, to finally give in, to feel something instead of nothing?

_“Just look at me, and believe.”_

His lips were cold. Smooth, and cold, and Emma held her breath, waiting--

Waiting--

_Come back to me, Killian._

And then she _felt_ it, felt the moment he woke up even before he gasped.

_(an inferno, burning everything in its wake as the energy rushed through her. It was raw and unfettered as it pushed every molecule in her body, electrifying her senses until she couldn’t feel anything but him)_

“Swan,” he said, his fingers brushing against his mouth and his eyes wide open and so very fucking blue, “what did you do?”

Snow squeaked. Liam and Henry rushed for the cell door and Charming held them back.

But Emma wouldn’t know any of that until later.

She smiled. A real smile, the kind that lit up her face and her eyes and showed all of her teeth. “I’ve been wondering if I would like it,” she said.

His eyebrows went up, and he smiled back at her--a real smile, that softened his entire face. “So what’s the decision?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, closing the infinitesimal distance between them, and there was the metal of his rings, cool as his finger traced the line of her cheekbone, and when his mouth opened and a sound escaped Emma wasn’t sure if it was him or her. She felt like she was being devoured, if the gentlest touch she’d ever felt in her life could eat her whole and make her crave it. It was everything--his fingers, the metal, his lips and tongue and the way he opened for her--

And it felt like magic.

Killian was breathing heavily, brushing his fingers against his mouth again, and she said: “It’s even better when you help.”

There were a thousand emotions flickering through his eyes, and Emma saw all of them: sorrow, remorse, understanding, desire, longing.

Love.

He was an open book.

Emma blinked. There was no way for her to look at him, to see him when he was like that, and pretend that she didn’t feel--all of it. Anything. Everything.

He smiled--a shy smile--and Emma realized that he saw all of those things in her, too. She leaned forward, feeling his forehead against hers when he met her halfway, his eyelashes fluttering across her cheek.

“What I wouldn’t give,” Regina said, “for another sleeping curse.” She sat on the cell mattress as if it was a throne. Her face was a mask of icy indifference.

Snow White stood in front of her, regarding her through the cell bars.

Emma tried to stand, but--

“Worry not, Swan,” Killian whispered, and she stayed with him, enjoying the weight of his hand on her arm.

“I agree with the pirate,” Charming said.

“Ah,” Gold sneered. “Twoo Wuv.”

“The curse is broken,” Charming said, ignoring him. “Neither of them can hurt us any more.”

There was a knock on the station door, a heavy object of some kind being battered against it.

“Open up,” Leroy’s voice called.

Snow walked to the door, slowly and with deliberation. “The curse is broken,” she agreed. She reached for the doorknob. “And now--we have a lot to figure out.”

“Together,” Killian muttered into her ear, and Emma nodded.

“Together,” she said, feeling the magic inside of her settle at the word; the inferno banked down to something warm and comforting and tied up between both of them, inextricable. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

\--

_Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective.  
_ _She had long, blonde hair that curled just so at the edges of her face with skin as fair as snow. Her eyes glinted green, like emeralds in the sunlight, and the fall of her lashes was thick and dark._

_Her name was Emma Swan._

Sheriff Emma Swan stood up, remembering at the last minute to turn off her oversized CRT monitor before she hit the light switch. On her desk there was a picture of her son; it was hand-drawn, in pen and ink. There was a pair of boots on the shelf behind her. One of them was missing a shoelace.

“I’m heading out, Red,” she called.

“Mmmm?” Ruby murmured, not looking up from her makeup mirror as she fluffed her waist-length, red-streaked black curls until she was satisfied with their volume. “You coming by later? I think Ursula’s got something new she wanted to try with the music tonight.”

“Tempting,” Emma said, “but no.”

“Belle’s gonna be there,” Ruby said, her dark eyes glittering. “And Will.”

“Poor Victor,” Emma sighed.

“Who said he wasn’t invited?” Ruby asked. She smacked her lips and blew a kiss.

“Yeah,” Emma said. “That’s my cue. Besides, I gotta go home first.”

_Emma was very, very good at her job, even though there was one mystery she couldn’t solve: how to mend a broken heart. She had once believed in love--in True Love--but now she wasn’t sure if it even existed. She had been given up by her parents, Snow White and Prince Charming, minutes after she was born, sent through a magical wardrobe so that she would have her best chance--so that some day, she would find them again. She would break a curse, and bring back the happy endings._

_But Emma Swan didn’t know any of that. All she knew was that she grew up alone, moving from city to city with no one on her side, and no one who knew her._

The logistics were the easy part.

Well--the logistics were the part that was _less hard_ , because magic, it turned out, was a very funny thing. It had no rules but its own, and the more questions Emma had, the more she had to shake her head and move on.

You really could handwave away _anything_ in Storybrooke by the simple expedient of magic being involved.

Cursed neighborhood in a thriving city? Magic.

Mary Margaret Blanhard as the only living heir of Regina Mills? Magic.

“Not really,” Mary Maragaret--Snow White--had said. “She is, after all, my stepmother.”

More surprising was the fact that Henry Mills turned up as the legal heir to Robert Gold.

“How,” Emma wanted to know, “did the _curse_ know that Henry was his grandson?’

And the Blue Fairy just leveled a glare at Emma, a superior air about her--a Mother Superior air--and said, as if it should have been obvious, “Magic.” She still wore her religious habit, the one Emma had noticed at Graham’s funeral, and it clung to her curves in a way that suggested “magic” had a sick sense of humor.

_She didn’t know it, sent away from her family to live in a land without magic, but Princess Emma was going to grow up to be the savior._

There was no justice system in the city equipped to handle the murder committed by Robert Gold or the Dark Curse committed by Regina Mills. Storybrooke was its own jurisdiction; a mysteriously unincorporated neighborhood with no relevant law enforcement agency except a small, understaffed sheriff’s department. Then again, the former residents of the Enchanted Forest--two words Emma still struggled to say with a straight face--

“If it helps,” Killian had said with a wry grin, “we always called it ‘Misthaven’ on our navigational charts.”

Of _Misthaven_ , then, were perfectly prepared to administer mob justice against the two people most responsible for their current predicament. Turns out, a ride with a Dark Curse was a one-way trip.

“When someone casts the curse, it’s a sacrifice of one world for another,” Blue said. “That’s simply how the magic works.”

Of course.

Nurse Ratched was perfectly happy to keep them in her asylum for a continuation of her current pay--plus dental. Emma agreed immediately. Anything to make the goddamn dwarves subside and leave her the hell alone.

Snow White looked on serenely. Prince Charming regarded her with pride.

_Emma Swan was no stranger to tragedy, but she eventually made her way to Storybrooke, and found herself a home there. She had a home, and friends, and a job that she loved, until, on her twenty-eighth birthday, the curse struck her. It was a day like any other: she got up, went to her office, took on a new case._

_But then her best friend--her partner--was murdered._

It wasn’t like the salty, half-assed dinners she’d had in so many foster homes--instant soup, just add water.

“Instant family--just add magic!”

It wasn’t easy. (That’s not how the magic worked.)

But heroes, Emma had learned, didn’t do what was easy. They did what was right.

_Emma knew that she had no choice but to pursue justice for her friend, and to punish the person who had committed the crime. But when Emma tracked down a possible lead to a bar on the outskirts of town, she didn’t find a suspect.  
_ _She found an ally._

_And she found out how deep the rabbit hole really went._

“Wait,” Emma said to her mother one night at dinner. “Let me get this straight: _you’re_ the head of the Mills Organization.”

Family dinner.

“You’re a teacher,” Emma said. “And you’re just going to--”

“She was raised to be a queen,” David--Prince Charming--reminded her with a smile, and Emma scowled. She had really, really wanted to hit him in that moment.

It must have shown on her face, because her father laughed. “God,” he said, “you’re so much like her.” He said it with wonder and pride and a lot of other emotions Emma was still learning how to deal with.

The emotions were the hard part.

Well--the emotions were the part that was _less easy_ , because Emma.

Family dinners and Killian sitting next to her, squeezing her knee under the table to let her know that he was there.

“So,” Emma said, “how rich are we, then? Like, King Midas rich?”

Snow looked at Charming.

Charming looked at Snow.

Something passed between them.

“It’s kind of a funny story,” David said.

_The night that Emma Swan met Killian Jones, she didn’t know his real name, or who he was, or where he was from._

_She didn’t know how much she didn’t know, or how all of it would change her life. All she knew was that her partner was killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him._

_All she knew was that something inside of her recognized him, like she had known him in another time and place; as if she had known him from her dreams.  
From her future._

Nights were the hardest, the part where the logistics and the emotions all bound up in each other; the part where she wanted, needed, desired Killian, to have him with her and to be with him. It was overwhelming, but the only part of it that terrified Emma was the part where it didn’t terrify her at all.

That first night--that first time--it was hot and raw and unchecked, all of those feelings, all of those emotions, that Emma had been denying herself coming up to the surface. She could feel it in her breathing, in her heartbeat, in the way that he laid hands on her and in the way the magic flowed through her, and it shouldn’t have been possible.

That’s not how the magic was supposed to work.

He was reverent and it left her trembling. It was too soon, too fast, too _much_.

But she slept, sated and spent in the arms of her True Love, and she dreamed.

She walked along the rocky shoreline, tilting her head toward the sky and feeling the sunlight on her face, and she looked for him. The sky was a perfect shade of blue and the air was crisp and clean and it was a perfect quiet moment; there was no sign of him.

Emma closed her eyes and took a breath, counting three before exhaling, and she was in Granny’s. It was empty: a glittering jukebox lit up in the corner, the wall clock set at 8:16.

Another breath and another three count and Emma opened her eyes, feeling something inside of her. A point of warmth that was getting warmer and the asylum laid out in front of her. The blind janitor watched her as he mopped the floor.

“That’s not how the magic works.” Regina’s voice, disembodied and hollow, drifted down the corridor. “Magic here is...unpredictable.”

“You know this isn’t right, Swan.” The whisper felt like it came out of the warmth, the warm spot that was still getting warmer. “Trust your gut. It will tell you what to do.”

The sheriff’s office looked like a dungeon, the bars made of fire, and Emma exhaled; Killian sat in the corner. She called his name.

“Swan,” he said, gasping, his fingers going straight to his mouth, “what did you do?” He didn’t look at her. “Why did you do it? Why did you not take the deal for the potion?”

The fire began to spread. He didn’t see her--he couldn’t see her.

“Killian,” Emma said, “come back to me, Killian--”

Emma turned, concentrating on the warmth inside of her, and _pulled_.

She held him against her, their backs toward the water as a wave crashed and bubbled up along the rocky shoreline.

He blinked. “Emma,” he said. His hand came up toward her face, and she leaned toward him. Their foreheads touched and his fingers were in her hair and he said her name again. “Emma,” he breathed. “What did you do?”

“I kissed you, Killian,” Emma said. “I kissed you, because you’re my happy ending.”

Emma closed her eyes. One, two, three--

And woke, Killian sweating and shivering in her arms.

_Killian Jones was a complicated man. He had wandered, and traveled, and suffered many hardships. He had been a slave, and a naval lieutenant. He had been a brother and a pirate and, some would say, a villain. He had given himself to vengeance and turned himself toward the darkness after his first love was murdered. He had willingly subjected himself to the Evil Queen’s plan, to the Dark Curse, in the hope that he might finally see his vengeance delivered._

For the first time in her life, Emma asked her mother for advice.

She’d always wondered what it would be like, to ask her mom about clothes or makeup or boys or--life. It never occurred to her that she’d need to ask about a sleeping curse.

“What was it like for you,” Emma said, “after dad woke you? From the--from the thing?”

“Oh, Emma,” Snow said. There was so much understanding, so much sympathy, so much empathy in the single word. It shocked Emma how much her mother immediately understood, and how much of a comfort that was. “Is he having the nightmares?”

_Killian Jones--Captain Hook--had spent many years in Neverland, the home of the Lost Ones, and still had not realized that he, himself, had been Lost.  
_ _Until he met Emma Swan, and found himself again._

_They found themselves in each other._

It wasn’t easy.

She had a kid who believed everything was going to be okay. He had a brother with a lot of justifiable anger issues.

Emma had literally never in her life lived under the same roof as her parents.

“You never even got to spend a single night in the nursery,” her father said, and Emma remembered the page in the storybook, of Prince Charming fighting off a horde of Black Knights and nearly dying in the process, all while protecting the daughter in his arms.

“There were unicorns on the mobile over your crib,” her mother said, and Emma could picture it, the colors and the crib and the toys, the hopes and the dreams manifest in a single room.

Emma had never gotten to spend the night with her kid, either.

The loft, Mary Margaret’s loft, was barely big enough for two. It had not been designed for six.

Fuck logistics.

But the nights were the hardest.

Because when Emma and Killian were apart, that’s when he was afraid to close his eyes.

That’s when the nightmares were the worst.

_The night they met, Killian told Emma about the Dark Curse, and her parents, and about a creature known as the Dark One, who had killed both his first love and Emma’s partner. The Dark One had lived for centuries, immortal, his powers seemingly limitless. But here, in Emma’s home, in Storybrooke and the Land Without Magic, the Dark One had no power. He only had plans. It was his curse that had brought Storybrooke into existence, and forced Emma from her parents._

_It was his curse that, unbeknownst to him, would bring the savior and the pirate together._

It wasn’t the same, every night--every time.

But Killian had so many regrets; when he slept, it was as if his body became, again, that prison--until she found him.

She always found him. She found him, and _pulled_ with her magic, and they would stare at the ocean.

Peaceful, quiet moments. Together.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he always said.

“Killian,” she always said. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. You’re a survivor.”

“The only one who’s ever saved me is you, Swan,” he said.

_It’s you, Emma. It’s all for you._

“Any port in a storm,” she said.

“That’s just it, love,” he said. “I’m not in the storm, not any more. Not since I met you.”

And when they were together, she could feel it, the way that her magic would settle around them.

No one knew why--that wasn’t how the magic was supposed to work.

_Twoo Wuv_ , Emma thought, and held him tighter.

The nights were the hardest, with the emotions. And the logistics. And the fact that there was no goddamn space in the loft--no doors, even. Four adults--two couples--and two adolescent boys, or near enough, and Emma learned very quickly that when her mother sent her on a grocery run in the middle of the afternoon to take her time and knock very loudly before she used her key.

Not that Emma didn’t find her own ways--The Rabbit Hole had doors that locked and a bedroom and an office with a large desk and that one time up against the hallway wall, in between the kitchen and the restrooms--Killian did, after all, still work most nights. But they always came home, after. They always spent the nights together, all under one roof. It was a family rule.

And then one night, as Emma kicked off her boots, as Killian helped her off with her coat, the door barely shut behind them, there was Snow White sitting at the table with cocoa and cinnamon and Scotch and rum. “We should talk,” Snow said.

“Pleasant conversation then, innit?” Killian muttered in her ear.

Henry was already using his cinnamon stick in lieu of a spoon but Liam looked suspicious. He was quiet and reserved and holding himself back, like he was afraid everything would shatter around him. He had seen everything he thought he’d known change twice in the space of mere days, but Emma was determined to do what she could to erase the haunted lost look from his eyes in the way that it never had been in hers, or in his brother’s.

“Everything okay, Mom?” Emma said, sitting down.

“Your father and I--” Snow paused and smiled. For an instant, her parents were the only two people in the universe.

Ruby had only fifteen minutes ago been throwing French fries at her in an attempt to divert Emma’s attention from Killian--but, gross. Emma didn’t need to see her parents like _that_.

“We think it’s time to make a few changes,” her father said.

Emma stiffened. It was an instinct, and the habits of a lifetime were not going to be broken by a few weeks of relative peace, but--her breathing hitched and her heart rate sped up and then she felt Killian’s hand on her knee, squeezing gently.

“Like what?” Henry asked, slurping his whipped cream. Henry had nothing but glee at his suddenly expanded family. It would shock her ten-year-old son to know that in that respect, Emma wanted nothing more than to be like him, her amazing, empathetic, achingly open kid who wanted all of them to have their happy endings.

One roof, three floors; the Mills Organization, and therefore Mary Margaret Blanchard, owned the building and all three apartments tucked into it.

“Okay,” Emma said. “But seriously, how rich are we? You sure it’s not, like, Midas rich?”

Her father laughed. “I’ll leave that to Kathryn,” he said.

“Kathryn really did go to Boston, though,” Emma said. “So that’s relevant how, exactly?”

“She was Princess Abigail in our world,” David said. “Abigail, daughter of Midas.”

Killian’s eyes lit up and his eyebrow went up and the corner of his mouth went up and Emma knew it was going to be trouble before he uttered a single word. “And why,” he said, “would you want to give up an opportunity like that?”

Snow let out an indignant sputter as she choked on her cocoa, but Charming laughed again.

“You of all people know why,” he said.

Killian’s arm snaked around Emma’s waist and he pulled them closer together. “Aye,” he said. “That I do.”

It wasn’t easy. It was too soon, too fast, too _much_.

But they found a way; that’s what this family did.

_Killian wasn’t someone who trusted easily. Emma wasn’t someone who trusted at all. But they quickly realized that together was the best way to get through, to get justice for Emma’s friend and partner--and to break the curse. When Emma’s life was threatened by the evil Queen of Hearts, it was Killian who was able to defend her. And when Killian put himself in the way of a sleeping curse to protect Emma’s family, Emma was able to awaken him._

_It was True Love’s Kiss, and it sent a pulse of magic through Storybrooke. Emma realized that her feelings gave her strength.  
_ _She broke the Dark Curse. She found her family.  
_ _She brought back the happy endings._

_Including for Killian Jones._

Once upon a time, after a long day at her new job with her best friend, Emma Swan came home to the apartment she shared with her family. She pulled off her boots, stepping over them into the apartment, and hung her red leather jacket on the hook by the door.

Killian Jones--Captain _freaking_ Hook--was sprawled out on the couch, his hand over his eyes. In his lap was a black-and-white speckled composition notebook; there was no sign of the work crew that had left a small pile of equipment in what was slowly becoming her--their--kitchen.

In the apartment she shared with her family--the _second-floor_ apartment. The one that was currently being fixed up with extra bedrooms and talk of breaking through the floor to the flat below, to make a duplex.

“‘Ello, love,” Killian called softly, and Emma smiled.

She did that a lot more often now--the real kind, that made her eyes light up and showed all of her teeth--and her smile didn’t fade as she stepped into the living room and took the notebook out of his lap.

“He told you the story again,” Emma said, gesturing at the sleeping form curled up in the oversized chair and the goddamn _domesticity_ of it--

“Aye,” Killian nodded, scrubbing his hand down his face as he sat up, and she still wasn’t used to it, what happened with his face when he got all soft like that talking about her kid. “Your boy spent the entire day working on it with Belle, and he was quite insistent. Seems to think hearing it will--”

“He worries,” Emma said. The lack of walls when sleeping upstairs left no room for secrets, and Henry did worry. He’d come up with the idea, to write down their story like a fairy tale, about Emma and Killian and Liam and their _family_ and it made Emma’s heart hurt, sometimes, when she thought about all that Henry had brought into her life. “He just wants to help.” She paused, then: “Does it? Help?”

_Emma Swan hadn’t been looking for someone who would give his heart to the world, or some True Love riding to her rescue.  
_ _The only one who saved her was her._ _But she had always hoped that somewhere in the universe, there might be someone who would keep her warm when she was cold, feed her when she was hungry, and maybe--on occasion--take her dancing._

_No one was more surprised than Emma when she found her True Love in the Storybrooke Sheriff’s station, when she kissed Killian Jones and saved him from eternal sleep._

_No one was more surprised when she found her family that night._

“Hearing a story where I’m not the villain? Yeah,” he said. “It helps.”

“You’re more than that,” Emma protested. “You’ve got a mark in the hero column, at least.”

“I’m not so sure about that, love,” he said. “I don’t believe I ever--to use your phrase--rode to the rescue, or gave my heart to the world.” Killian’s words were teasing, but his eyes were serious.

“You gave your heart,” Emma said. “You gave it to me.”

“I did,” he said. “But you have given me use for it: a double heart for my single one.”

Emma grinned. She could always tell when he was quoting something.

“Shakespeare?” she asked.

“Aye.” He smirked. "I'm getting a mite predictable, then?"

"Maybe you should try something new, darling," Emma said, her voice a terrible imitation of his accent, and he laughed and stood up and pulled the notebook from her hands, placing it with some care on the couch cushion. 

Killian's voice was low and sleepy as he began to speak.

" _'i fear / no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want / no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) / and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant / and whatever a sun will always sing is you'_ ," he said. He pulled her until she was flush against him. His finger traced the chain around her neck.

_'_ " _and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart','_ " he said. _'"i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)'_. _"_ He kissed her, starting at her forehead, trailing down to her mouth, and whispered against her lips.

“Dance with me, Swan,” he said.

_And they all lived happily ever after.  
_ _The End._

\--

_**Our revels now are ended. These our actors,  
**_ **_As I foretold you, were all spirits and  
_ ** **_Are melted into air, into thin air:  
_ ** **_And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,  
_ ** **_The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,  
_ ** **_The solemn temples, the great globe itself,  
_ ** **_Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve  
_ ** **_And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,  
_ _Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff_**  
 ** _As dreams are made on, and our little life  
_ _Is rounded with a sleep._**

_The Tempest Act IV, Scene 1_

**-30-**


End file.
